TANAKA Akihiko

JICA President Akihiko Tanaka speaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington in front of over 150 audience members.

JICA President Akihiko Tanaka told an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 12 that the paradigm of “human security” is important in official development assistance in the 21st century.

The remarks were part of his keynote address at the U.S.-Japan Development Summit. The event marked this year’s 60th anniversary of the start of Japan's official development assistance (ODA). It attracted more than 150 participants, including development practitioners, scholars of the Japan-U.S. relationship, and members of the media, and it included lively discussion of the past and future evolution of Japan-U.S. development assistance.

In his keynote address, Tanaka said human security involves protecting individuals from natural disasters, communicable diseases and other threats. Tanaka said the paradigm is expressed in the preamble to the Japanese Constitution with the words "free from fear and want," and he sincerely hopes the Japan-U.S. development partnership will be based on promoting human security.

Tanaka also gave an introduction to ODA projects Japan has carried out, including the Japan-Chile Salmon Project, the Brazil Cerrado Agricultural Development, and the Thai Eastern Seaboard Development Program. The development of human resources and infrastructure with a long-term perspective contributed to subsequent steady economic development and poverty reduction, Tanaka said.

While in Washington from Feb. 10-14, Tanaka also gave a speech to U.S. Rep. Jim McDermott and other figures from the U.S. Congress that provided an introduction to Japan's development assistance.

USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, left, and JICA President Tanaka discussed enhancing the partnership between their organizations.

In addition, Tanaka held talks with Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID); Luis Alberto Moreno, president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB); and Andrew Steer, CEO of the World Resources Institute. Tanaka discussed how to strengthen JICA's partnership with his counterparts and their respective agencies.

In talks between Tanaka and Shah, they said there are several good opportunities for advancing the Japan-U.S. partnership in the field of development. As an example, they cited the upcoming First Japan-U.S. Development Dialogue, which will be held in the U.S. on Feb. 20. Also, Shah emphasized that the conventional Japanese value of "resilience" (the ability to recover from natural disasters and other external shocks) is clearly spelled out in USAID’s new mission statement announced last month, and he emphasized that USAID will stress resilience going forward. The two leaders discussed partnership on African development as well, including between the infrastructure development assistance initiative Japan announced at the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) and the U.S. electric power assistance initiative, Power Africa, which was announced by U.S. President Barack Obama last year. A partnership on assistance to Afghanistan also was part of the discussion.

Tanaka and Moreno discussed the results of JICA-IDB partnerships so far in fields including renewable energy, and they agreed to further partnership in the area of Emerging and Sustainable Cities Initiative.