The Unheard Giant

Japan’s voice in the official development assistance (ODA) debates regarding aid effectiveness and quality is proportionally minute relative to the preponderant importance of Japan’s aid in terms of size, impact, and future consequences for developing countries. This lack of voice, joined with a shrinking national budget for aid, will further undermine the utility of Japan’s main foreign policy tool, ODA. Japan should contribute more to the international debate on ODA with scholarship on aid quality that seeks to identify causal links between aid and outcomes as opposed to the conventional focus on motives. Increased attention to the results of Japanese aid could help the government develop new criteria to strengthen policy and reset world opinion of Japan’s past and current aid practices, a prerequisite for Japan to restore its status as an ODA power.