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access: 10min. walk from Ichigaya Station, JR Chuo/Sobu Line 10min. walk from Ichigaya Station Exit A1, Tokyo Toei Shinjuku Line 8 min. walk from Ichigaya Station Exit 6, Tokyo Metro Yurakucho/Nanboku Line

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Monthly Highlights of Research Activities: June 27 is Micro-, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises Day!

2025.06.27

（Photo:JICA/Kenshiro Imamura）

Micro-, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) play a vital role in job creation, income generation and local growth. However, many of them face significant challenges, such as limited access to finance. To raise awareness of the critical role MSMEs play in promoting inclusive growth and sustainable development, the United Nations designated June 27 as MSME Day in 2017.

JICA is committed to fostering and strengthening the private sector, the backbone of national development, with a focus on supporting self-sustained economic growth, job creation and expansion, and higher national income. At the JICA Ogata Research Institute, we conduct research on private sector development and on how private businesses can contribute to a sustainable society. Below are some of our key publications and projects in this area:

Book | For the World’s Profit: How Business Can Support Sustainable Development

How can the pursuit of profit by private businesses align with the “public good”?
This book, a result of a joint study with the Brookings Institution, brings together a remarkable array of distinguished corporate, investor, government, academic, and nonprofit perspectives to reflect on this question. Chapter 3 “Strengthening Small Businesses to Support Sustainable Development” examines the capacity building of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to act sustainably and Chapter 7 “Aligning International Banking Regulation with the SDGs” discusses the impact of the Basel III framework on lending to SMEs.

Click here for details.

▶ See related video and blogs
Homi Kharas , Research Partner at the JICA Ogata Research Institute (also Senior Fellow in the Global Economy and Development program at the Brookings Institution), the book's editor, provides an overview of the publication .

“The Future of Business and Sustainable Development” A Blog by Visiting Fellow Makino Koji and Others is posted on the Brookings Institution Website
This blog introduces three key debates that warrant attention in the context of recent global trends in the business landscape—value creation, risk management, and accountability—while also presenting insights from the authors of the chapters in the book.

Book | SDGs, Transformation, and Quality Growth: Insights from International Cooperation

This book offers insights into the idea of quality growth and explores its essential attributes, such as inclusiveness, sustainability, and resilience. It discusses quality growth in the context of transformation, which is the key driver of growth and a determinant of varied attributes of advancement. It also provides case studies on SME development in Vietnam, Mexico, Thailand and Bangladesh.

Click here for details.

▶ To learn more
Study on “Quality Growth”

Book | Translative Adaptation of Foreign Skills Formation Models: Cases of Japanese Development Cooperation in Southeast Asia

This volume focuses on the technical and vocational education and training (TVET) aspect of the supply of skilled workers, in particular intermediate workers including the technicians and skilled machine operators required for industrialization, with specific reference to the experience of Japanese industrial development cooperation. It examines how Japanese industrial development cooperation for TVET has been implemented in Southeast Asia, contributing to learning and local customization of the acquired knowledge, from the perspective of "translative adaptation." It includes cases in Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand.