7 November 2004

Keynote speaker: 　Mr. Mase,　 Secretary of the department of aid programmes, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Chairman: Mr. Mase is here to talk to us about Japan's grant aid scheme, called "Grant Assistance for Grass-roots Human Security Projects", or "Kusanone-Musho". Between 2001 and 2003, Mr. Mase was in charge of the aid programme at the Japanese Embassy in Senegal. Mr. Mase will generously share his experience of aid programmes in Senegal. There will be an opportunity to ask questions after his speech. Mr. Mase: I am grateful for this opportunity. I will talk about how the Ministry of Foreign Affairs feels about Kusanone and my experiences about how aid programmes operate in Africa and Japan. First of all, I will introduce myself briefly. I started working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1998. I had two-years of training in France then I joined the financial aid teams in Senegal, Mali, and Guinea-Bissau. I am currently engaging in the aid programme. I will now talk about what Kusanone is. Please look at the handout for April this year. Kusanone is a new aid programme. The aid programme itself started in the 1960s. Kusanone started in 1989 and its name was changed in 2003. Aid programme organizations provide aid and practice fund-raising for grass roots projects in developing countries. In contrast to others, Kusanone aims to support local authorities, NGO's, educational authorities, and healthcare authorities in developing countries. Kusanone used to support Japanese NGOs until an aid programme was set up for them during the Japanese fiscal year of 2002. The fields that Kusanone mainly provides aid in are; water supply, education, healthcare, and medical services. We do not limit our support to these fields, however we focus on them given the demand for aid in these areas. There are also other fields in which we occasionally provide aid. The minimum financial aid we provide is 10 million yen and the maximum is 100 million yen. The more funding we need to send, the more complicated the procedure for the payment is. We tend to send relatively small amounts of money, as Kusanone sends funds to local agencies. I understand that the points and goal of the TCSF framework are to find out how we could extend our support directly to African people. I believe that we are able to do so through Kusanone. Perhaps you are interested in Kusanone's achievements in Africa. Please refer to the handout again. You will see that our achievements have been reducing for the last several years. The total funding of Japanese aid programmes to organizations in Africa was reduced from 26% to 20% between 2002 and 2003 due to the deterioration of the situation in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is another reason of the funding reduction. Although Japan understands the importance of diplomatic relationship with, and of providing aid to Africa, the local staff has difficulties in understanding the situation of these enormous areas. What I mean by Africa here is Sub-Saharan Africa. Important Note: The procedure is stated in Appendix 2 in the handouts. Kusanone considers the judgments of local agencies most important. 1) Assessment of the recipients' ability to carry out the plan To succeed with our plan, assessment needs to be carried out thoroughly. First of all, cases need to be prioritized, as there are a huge number of cases. Cases then need to be assessed. The goals need to be realistic and the groups have to be capable of dealing with and completing the projects. Capability is assessed by considering the recipients' financial condition, manpower, past achievements, the results of the consultation, the nature of the requests, and the achievements and ability of the traders that are to work on the case. We also examine what they need, whether all the necessary items are included, and whether the local agencies are able to clarify why the requested amount of funding is as such. This point is "easier said, than done". For example, in case of Mali (where I was in charge), Abidjan Port became unavailable due to the civil war that occurred in September 2002. Mali is located in the interior, and the port was used for 70% of distributions. Prices rose so we needed to re-estimate everything in our plan and re-examine whether our plans were still achievable in that situation. Some traders or local agencies often knew how to get goods through different routes. Frankly speaking, we sometimes have to take some risk, so the decision is always to be made by discreet assessment and discussion. Capabilities to carry out the case are much taken into consideration. 2) During inspection There are many things that we need to make sure of during inspection. It is important to exchange opinions with local authorities, local people, and NGO's. We should never underestimate the importance of securing land. Proprietary land rights are complicated, and even local authorities cannot deal with the situation in so many cases. 3) Publicity activities Japan's target "face to face support" will be your concern if you work for Japanese Embassies. There are arguments both for and against this measure. Although local agencies might think that publicizing the aid programme is not important, we need to publicize our countries name as the supporter because ODA is operated by Japanese citizens' tax. Frankly speaking, the Japanese government considers the publicity associated with Japanese aid to local people to be important. The ODA budget is reducing year by year. Yet ODA is still considered to be important by the government because it is known as Japanese Aid Programme to the world. 4) Frequent monitoring and follow-up by Embassies It is our responsibility to keep monitoring aid to ensure that it is received by people in need. The manpower of Embassies is very limited and to make matters worse, each Embassy takes care of several countries. In case of the Japanese Embassy in Senegal, 15 people are taking care of 6 countries. I will now briefly explain how local Embassies work on the aid programme. Next, I will tell you how "the aid programme to Africa" is perceived from the Tokyo side. As for myself, since coming back from Senegal, I work in the department of aid programme. In Senegal, I used to see the aid programme differently from how I see it in Tokyo. In TICAD III last autumn, Japan agreed to give a billion yen to Africa over the following five years. This agreement was a pledge that Japan would officially announce how Japan provides aid to the whole of Africa. The provision of aid is a role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The local teams such as Embassies and NGOs were concerned about what this pledge would lead them to. The difference in these concerns does not mean that their relationship is inconsistent. This difference occurs simply because their roles are different. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to prioritize countries and provides aid accordingly. When in Mali and Senegal, I was concerned about aid to Mali and Senegal as I was in charge of those countries. I was very much subjective to the provision of aid to Mali and Senegal when I took care of those countries. Objectively, however, aid is provided to not only Africa but other places of the world. As an important role of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we need to find the reason why aid is needed in countries. What if the government underestimates the aid needs of a country? This will not be the case in Iraq and Afghanistan, as it is well known that those countries have been devastated by the war. Therefore the government considers urgent aid to those countries as necessity. No doubt, the government understands the need of aid to Africa. It is important to find out why aid is to be provided to Africa before other countries. It is often said that Japan could win many votes because of ODA to secure the seat in the international organization. I believe that the government helps Africa because of its poverty. Japan was once in chaos because of World War II. Japan rose from the ashes by building motorways and fast trains called Shinkansen with the aid from the international community and we need to bear in mind that she has paid off all the loans only recently. Countries like Japan should reach their hands to the countries in need. Awareness of African culture should be raised in Japan so that more people will be interested in the culture and people. I think that African Festivals should be planned more often. The Japan-African union parliamentary friendship league was formed in the Diet recently because many politicians were interested in Africa. It sent members to Africa this summer. This type of thing would have been hard to imagine a short time ago. Our aims are the improvement of aid in terms of quality and quantity. The ODA budget has been reduced by 30% over the last seven years and aid programmes are included in this reduction. However the budget for Kusanone between 2001 and 2003 actually increased from 10 billion yen to 15 billion yen. Although we strongly hope to provide more aid, we are aware of the importance of improving the quality of our aid. To do so, we believe that the abilities of people working on Kusanone who are from Embassies, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the related local agencies are important. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recently changed the guidelines for Kusanone Aid. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs informs Embassies of the new guidelines and hold meetings in order to exchange information and opinions between staff, which is expected to help them improve their skills and gain more knowledge. This policy should be implemented among NGOs. NGOs are taking more important roles year by year. Therefore members of NGOs should extend their capacities. NGO members should also discuss the needs of local people in Africa at places like the TCSF. In the case of U.S NGOs, several major NGOs receive funds directly from the U.S government. The government does not fund local NGOs without assessment and inspection. Local NGOs are subcontractors for the U.S NGOs initially. In the meantime the local NGO is assessed and once they are considered capable, the government starts funding them directly. I am not suggesting that Japan should implement the same system, but I believe that looking at the U.S system might help us to come up with a good solution. If Japanese NGOs carry out more work in Africa, Japanese Embassies in Africa will be able to collect information on local situations from NGOs. In Mali, exchanging opinions and information with NGOs was quite helpful in my work. We need to reconsider the aims of aid to Africa and appeal more to the public and explain why we need to provide aid to Africa. Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also appeals its importance to the public through TICAD, what the government can do is very limited so non-governmental organizations help is necessary. To continue providing aid to Africa, it is essential that the government appeals to the public with a logical explanation of aid to Africa. Thank you for listening to my speech. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.