An Oral History of Development Cooperation - Experiences of Japan and its Partners

This Open Access book offers a comprehensive oral history of Japan’s development cooperation, based on nearly 300 interview narratives collected in Indonesia, Chile, Tanzania, Malaysia, Thailand, Costa Rica, Kenya, Ghana, Zambia, Jordan, Brazil, Cambodia, and Japan. Unlike most books on development cooperation, which are written from the perspective of aid providers, this book gives voice to local actors – referred to as ‘counterparts’ – in aid recipient countries. In an era of geopolitical polarisation and parochialism, the book compellingly presents alternative ways of development cooperation founded on trusting relationships between foreign experts and their partners. The case studies cover primary and manufacturing industries, infrastructure, education, health, migration, environmental sustainability, and peace. The book invites readers to rethink how development cooperation can be reimagined in our divided world.
 
 
In this era when development cooperation undergoes drastic transformation, it is crucial for us to learn from past experience to inform future strategies. Japan’s approach has focused on teaching people how to fish rather than giving them fish, thereby fostering unbreakable bonds of trust with local people. This book vividly depicts how these trusting relationships enabled development projects to overcome unforeseen challenges and crises. By sharing narratives of those involved, the book also reveals their expectation, frustration, and a shared sense of accomplishment. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the future direction of global efforts in development cooperation.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Akihiko Tanaka, President, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) 
Mine Yoichi is Executive Director, JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development. His English publications include Connecting Africa and Asia: Afrasia As a Benign Community (Routledge).

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface.- Documenting Voices-Oral History of Development Cooperation.- Blessings of Water, Blessings of People-Agriculture and Fishing.- Nurturing People, Crafting Goods-Manufacturing.- Teaching is Learning: Education.- The Right to a Healthy Life-Health and Veterinary Medicine.- Towards Human Security.

Über den Autor / die Autorin

Yoichi Mine is Executive Director of the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development. He is also Extraordinary Professor, the Department of Political Science, University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. His research interests include human security, international development, and African area study. His English publications include Connecting Africa and Asia: Afrasia As a Benign Community (Routledge, 2022), Human Security Norms in East Asia (co-edited, Palgrave, 2019), Human Security and Cross-Border Cooperation in East Asia (co-edited, Palgrave, 2019), Migration and Agency in a Globalizing World (co-edited, Palgrave, 2018), and Preventing Violent Conflict in Africa (co-edited, Palgrave, 2013).

Zusammenfassung

This Open Access book provides a comprehensive historical overview of Japan’s development cooperation based on oral evidence. Some of the projects this book portrays date back to the 1960s. The book draws extensively on the lively and spirited narratives provided by 288 people, mostly project counterparts in developing countries, whom the author interviewed between 2018 and 2024. The research covers six Asian, four African, and three Latin American countries, with the sectors of projects ranging from agriculture and fisheries to manufacturing, infrastructure, education, health, and human security. The stories told by the witnesses are full of passion, retrospection, and careful judgment, combined with factual information provided in JICA’s expert reports. Each project has evolved in a self-contained way with its own logic, but when they are all combined in a single book, a holistic picture of Japan’s development cooperation emerges.
Historically, one of the basic principles of Japan’s ODA has been to support the self-help efforts of developing countries. In this book, storytelling on the donor side is relegated to the background, and the voices of people in developing countries are amplified instead. Drawing on the principal-agent theory, the book creates an original space for stakeholders in developing countries, especially the local professionals who have played a key role in their nation-building efforts, such as teachers, medical doctors, engineers, agricultural extension workers, municipal officers, etc. These professionals are called “counterparts” of Japanese experts and have been the direct targets of hands-on technology transfer. In addition, the book carefully explains how these projects have overcome political and environmental crises as well as critical circumstances related to organizational sustainability. Readers are expected to learn a great deal from the project histories presented in this book.
Japan began its ODA in 1954, a decade before it joined the OECD in 1964, and became a top donor country in the 1990s. To date, many countries Japan has assisted have achieved remarkable growth and joined the ranks of emerging donors. The history of Japan as the first nation in the world that has crossed the border from the South to the North, as well as its experience of rapid recovery from its defeat in World War II, is embedded in the modality of its development cooperation. The experience of Japan’s development cooperation, as evidenced in this book, will provide eye-opening lessons for countries in the Global South as well as those in the donor camp.
The book is a translation of the original Japanese version, which was published in March 2023 as the sixth in the seven-volume series of the outcomes of a research project, “Japan’s Development Cooperation: A Historical Perspective,” designed and implemented by the JICA Ogata Sadako Research Institute for Peace and Development.
 
 
In this era when development cooperation undergoes drastic transformation, it is crucial for us to learn from past experience to inform future strategies. Japan’s approach has focused on teaching people how to fish rather than giving them fish, thereby fostering unbreakable bonds of trust with local people. This book vividly depicts how these trusting relationships enabled development projects to overcome unforeseen challenges and crises. By sharing narratives of those involved, the book also reveals their expectation, frustration, and a shared sense of accomplishment. This book is a must read for anyone interested in the future direction of global efforts in development cooperation.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Tanaka Akihiko, President, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

Produktdetails

• Autoren: Yoichi Mine
• Verlag: Springer EN
• Sprache: Englisch
• Produktform: Fester Einband
• Erscheint: 07.05.2026
• EAN: 9789819554782
• ISBN: 978-981-9554-78-2
• Illustration: Approx. 370 p. 25 illus., 5 illus. in color., farbige Illustrationen, schwarz-weiss Illustrationen
• Themen: Sozialwissenschaften, Recht,Wirtschaft > Politikwissenschaft > Vergleichende und internationale Politikwissenschaft; Oral History, Entwicklungsökonomie und Schwellenländer, Open Access, Development Studies, Development Economics, development cooperation, principal-agent theory, Devement in Asia, Development in Latin America, official development assistance (ODA), Development in Africa