Project News

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has been conducting KAIZEN projects in eight African countries while providing training programs in more than 25 countries in Africa.

One of the eight countries is Ethiopia, a leading country in the region on the implementation and dissemination of the KAIZEN philosophy. In Ethiopia, KAIZEN begun in 2009 in 30 pilot manufacturing companies; now the philosophy is expanding to other sectors as well. To promote the philosophy at a national level, four regional KAIZEN institutes (Addis Ababa, Oromia, Amhara and Dire Dawa) have been established and are working on disseminating basic KIAZEN in their respective regions.

In the meantime, JICA Research Institute and the Japanese scholars have been conducting various studies as well as bringing together the experience of multiple countries to build a KAIZEN model for industrial development. To that end, a new KAIZEN book entitled "Applying the Kaizen in Africa - A New Avenue for Industrial Development" was published by Palgrave Macmillan in August 2018 with the support of JICA.

The book is a collaboration between prominent development economists, Prof. Keijiro Otsuka of the Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University and Prof. Tetsushi Sonobe from the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS); as well as Mr. Kimaki Jin, former JICA Chief Representative in Ethiopia and Ms. Momoko Suzuki, JICA HQ; Mr. Seiji Sugimoto and Mr. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (KAIZEN project experts) and Mr. Getahun Tadesse (the first Director General of the Ethiopian Kaizen Institute).

JICA Ethiopia Office has proudly presented a copy of the book to H.E. Dr. Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia, H.E. Mr. Tagesse Chaffo, Minister of Public Service and Human Resource Development, H.E. Dr. Ambachew Mekonnen, Minister of Industry, H.E. Mr. Kefyalew Tefera, State Minister of Public Service and Human Resource Development and H.E. Mr. Neway Gebre-ab, Former Chief Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister.