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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 11 - 17 March 1999 Issue No. 420
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Focus Special Features Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Money can buy them love
By Gamal NkrumahJapan is a country in the grip of a serious economic crisis. As a visitor from a Third World country, no sooner had I arrived than I began to wish that we could have economic crises like these. I gazed with utter astonishment at the imposing grandeur of Japan's capital city. Tokyo combines the most impressive features of Parisian elegance and sophistication with New York's pulsating power and dynamism. There is, however, one big difference that distinguishes Tokyo from both its Old and New World rivals -- the Japanese are disarmingly down-to-earth. There is none of the Gallic arrogance, or the Manhattanite megalomania and nervous energy. Everyone is embarrassingly polite, and though a metropolis of some 26 million people, Tokyo has by far the lowest crime rate of any big city in the world. A remarkable feat, when you consider that the Greater Tokyo Metropolitan area is the world's largest urban centre.
But, perhaps the most striking difference between Tokyo and its Western counterparts is that wealth here is far more equitably distributed. The lack of yawning chasms between the haves and the have-nots must account for at least part of the remarkable sense of social cohesion which distinguishes the country, even in such trying times as these.
Nor, despite the pinch on their own purse, do the Japanese appear to be suffering from the "aid fatigue" that has hit major Western donor nations. According to a recent opinion poll conducted by the Japanese prime minister's office, 44.5 per cent of respondents felt that Japan should maintain overseas aid to the developing nations "at current levels". Indeed, 31.2 per cent were of the view that Japanese aid to poor countries should be stepped up. Only 13.6 per cent said that it should be reduced substantially and a mere 2.3 per cent were in favour of scrapping it altogether. In other words, 75.5 per cent of the Japanese people want to maintain present aid levels or raise them even higher.
Small wonder, then, that Japan has been the world's top donor of overseas development aid for eight years running. In 1997, Japan disbursed bilateral aid totalling $6.55 billion, while contributions channeled through multilateral institutions totalled $2.81 billion, up by a staggering 153.2 per cent from the 1996 figure. In sharp contrast, the United States gave out more than $3 billion less in 1997 compared with 1996.
Perhaps it is the incredibly high living standards and ostentatious pleasure in material comfort that accounts for the Japanese sense of generosity, serenity and spiritual well-being. I have never encountered more luxury cars cruising the streets of a city, nor seen such incredibly wide boulevards, nor visited so many plush neighbourhoods. Jaguars, Rolls Royces and Mercedes-Benz, flashy sports cars and solid four-wheel drives -- mostly imported -- ply the tree-lined boulevards of downtown Tokyo, and the upmarket suburbs of Chiyoda-Ku, Minato-Ku and Roppongi. The Japanese are also without doubt the best-dressed people I have come across. Almost everyone seems to be in designer clothes -- the most stylish Italian shoes and suits, the most expensive French perfumes and dresses, are apparently de rigueur.
This ostentatious affluence can give the visitor from the South an uneasy feeling. The slightest hint of talk about a possible reduction in overseas aid is liable to breed resentment. And there is a tiny, but vociferous, minority of Japanese which is critical of the country's present policy. As the recession deepens, their ranks might well swell. Yet, pessimism is not yet as obligatory as Patchou. Japan was itself a major aid recipient in the period immediately after World War Two, and this experience seems to have imprinted on people's hearts and minds the importance of assistance to poorer nations.
Japanese aid has, of course, always been heavily biased towards the developing countries of Asia, and this trend seems set to continue. Eight of the Thai capital's 12 bridges were built with Japanese money. Fifteen per cent of Indonesia's express ways were funded by Tokyo and the power installations that produce 46 per cent of Malaysia's total electricity were likewise made possible by Japan.
Such generosity is also a fairly recent phenomena. "As inhabitants of an island nation surrounded by the ocean, the Japanese have had a deep-rooted sense of isolation from other nations," explained Tokuji Hosono, managing director of the Foreign Press Centre in Tokyo. "They did not traditionally seek involvement with the outside world. In fact, one of the factors that first made the Japanese aware of themselves as members of the international community was the oil crisis of 1973." Hosono told Al-Ahram Weekly, "The idea of international exchange led by local residents originated in 1975. This approach emphasised exchange, not kokusai (between governments), but minsai (between people). Exchange between people is based on the concept of citizens living together on this planet and overcoming their national and cultural differences."
Grassroots international exchange at the level of local residents has since evolved into a multi-tiered endeavour bringing together local governments, NGOs, community organisations and local private enterprise. It is in this context that Japan has increased its collaboration and cooperation at the level of the state.
One particularly successful example of such collaboration is the regular high-level consultations Japanese aid officials hold with their Canadian counterparts. "We operate in a very different manner," admitted Robert Derouin, a Canadian International Development Assistant (CIDA) official stationed in the Tokyo Ministry of Foreign Affairs. "The Japanese focus on Asia, we focus on Africa. The Japanese focus on infrastructure development -- building bridges, roads, schools, hospitals, water treatment and purification plants, sewerage and waste disposal projects. We focus on human resource development and capacity building," Derouin told the Weekly.
Yet the partnership seems set to last, and it is a promising sign of things to come. "The Japanese were initially apprehensive," said Derouin. "They thought that we Canadians were just coming to spend their aid budget. But CIDA made it clear that we'd pay our own way. Now, everyone is more trusting and more conscious that donor coordination is very important."
It is through joint endeavours such as these that Japan seems set to play an ever more influential role in determining the politics of aid as we move into the 21st century.
