Japan’s Unwavering Commitment to Development and Future: 70 years of Japan’s ODA

New Delhi, 07 October: October 6, 2024 marked a significant milestone for Japan, commemorating 70 years since its commencement of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in 1954. Over the past seven decades, Japan, as a major global partner, has extended its cooperation programs to 190 countries and regions, contributing to their economic and social development, as well as peace and prosperity within the global community.

Japan’s international cooperation efforts began in parallel with the payment of postwar reparation to Asian states, with the aim of rebuilding trust within the international community. Starting with providing technical training programs to Asian states and expanding its cooperation programs, Japan has become one of the leading bilateral development partners in the world.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), is responsible for administrating Japan’s ODA, offering a wide variety of cooperation programs, including financial and investment cooperation, technical cooperation, and other services including emergency aid and the dispatch of volunteers. In synergy with the domestic initiatives of recipient countries, JICA’s cooperation programs, such as those for infrastructure development and human resources development, have laid a solid foundation for their development.

Focusing on India, Japan’s first ODA Loan globally was extended to India in 1958, and since then, over JPY 8,400 billion (approx. INR 4,900 billion) of ODA (Loan/Grant/Technical Cooperation etc.) has been extended to India, contributing to the development of various sectors in India, including transport, water and sanitation, power, industry, forestry, biodiversity, agriculture, health, and education, among others.

For example, JICA has been supporting Delhi Metro Project, well known as the “Shining Example of Indo-Japanese Cooperation”, since 1997 for JPY 928 billion (approx. INR 540 billion). Through India-Japan cooperation, Delhi Metro has not only enhanced urban connectivity in Delhi but also transformed the lives of its citizens, especially women, by providing safe and affordable access to the city.

Amid the ever-growing friendship between India and Japan, we achieved a historic milestone of the largest loan commitment amounting to JPY 809 billion (approx. INR 470 billion) in FY 2023/2024 for 13 projects across India including the Northeastern Region, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Delhi. Additionally, in 2024, we have witnessed completion of various projects supported by JICA such as Mumbai Metro Line 3, Mumbai Trans Harbor Link and India Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad.

It has been a fundamental principle of JICA to respect the ownership and self-help efforts of partner countries and to put strong emphasis on unwavering commitments with a long-term vision. JICA highly values people-to-people interactions, bringing strengths together through dialogue rather than through the unilateral transfer of technology and knowledge. This approach enables us to offer solutions tailored to local contexts and to foster the human resources necessary for the sustainable growth of a country. It has also deepened mutual understanding and trust, and thereby strengthening bilateral relations between JICA’s partner countries and Japan.

Despite the significant efforts by the international communities, many global challenges remain unresolved. Issues such as climate change, armed conflict, pandemics, natural disasters, economic crises, and other threats have become more complex and interlinked, leading to the compound crises. A UN report warns that only 17% of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) targets are on track to be achieved, with only 6 years remaining until the target year of 2030. India has achieved significant progress towards SDGs, however, the international community needs to work harder and more closely than ever to overcome these compound crises.

In India, JICA is taking a multi-sectoral approach to holistically advance the SDGs. For example, JICA has supported around 90 forestry/biodiversity/agriculture projects across India with community centric approach to address both climate change and improvement of livelihood especially for women thorough capacity development on income generation. Furthermore, JICA is focusing on the health and well-being of the people through projects aimed at improving the quality of health care services with the establishment and upgrading of hospitals, as well as enhancing water & sanitation infrastructure benefiting more than 45 million people, including projects for rejuvenation of Ganga and Yamuna rivers.

In response to the changing global landscape, the Government of Japan revised its Development Cooperation Charter in June 2023 to update its development cooperation to be implemented in a more effective and strategic manner.

In the revised charter, human security is positioned as the guiding principle that underlies all of Japan’s development cooperation. Human security refers to a state in which individuals are free from fear and want and can live with dignity. Amid these compounded crises, many people find their human security threatened; critically, vulnerable people in developing countries are the most seriously affected. As the development cooperation agency of Japan, JICA is further committed to ensuring human security through its efforts for poverty reduction through quality growth.

To achieve these goals, JICA is evolving its cooperation programs to engage diverse actors and facilitate collaborative work in development efforts. There are enormous unresolved development issues, and many of which remain without clear solutions. The complexity of these development challenges requires innovative solutions that emerge from collaborations among the public sector, private sector, academia, and other stakeholders. Furthermore, it is not the exclusive role of developed countries to lead global transformations, as many developing countries have experienced remarkable economic development and start-ups from these nations have entered the global market. Given this situation, one of the critical keys to accelerating efforts to address development issues is for ODA to function as a catalyst for collaboration to harness the wisdom and technology of these diverse sectors. ODA is expected to play a crucial role in realizing and promoting such co-creation.

In this context, JICA has engaged in various projects that promote India-Japan collaboration such as the loan projects aimed at fostering the start-up ecosystem and innovation in Telangana, newly signed in February 2024, the loan and technical cooperation project for the development of IIT Hyderabad, and technical cooperation on business co-creation between Japan and India. Building reciprocal relationships through continuous dialogues with partner countries to create solutions is a strong tradition of Japan’s cooperation, and JICA is ready to advance co-creation by leveraging the tradition.

JICA’s vision is “Leading the World with Trust”. Our development cooperation has been focusing on human security, equal partnerships, and self-ownership by developing countries. We are committed to continued cooperation with developing countries and like-minded development partners. In a world of disruptions, it is important to maintain the values we consider essential and to respond to new challenges in innovative ways together, building on the trust that Japan has built over the years.