Technology and Development - JICA · Technology and Development is published once a year by the Institute for International Cooperation (IFIC). The The articles are selected and translated

No.14 January 2001

ARTICLE

International Cooperation Activities and Anthropology— Problems in Japan’s Context —

............................................................................................................................... Makio MATSUZONOTraining World-Scale Professional Engineers

— In View of Secondment of Qualified Engineers for Technical Cooperation —....................................................................................................................................... Fumio NISHINO

Role of Material Flow Analysis in Sustainable Development— Material Flow of Livestock Farming in the Dhofar Region of Oman —

................................................................................................................................ Hisashi KOBAYASHI

CASE STUDY

Introduction of the User Free System at the National Maternal and Child Health Center in Cambodia................................. Takako YAMADA / Hidechika AKASHI / Naoko FUJITA / Takako SUGIMOTO

Agricultural Development and Soybean Cultivation by Japanese Farmers in Paraguay— From the Introduction of Non-Tillage Cultivation to Environmental Conservation-Type Approach for Up-

land Farming —........................................................................................................................................... Kazuo NAGAI

Japan’s Assistance in the Field of Education for Children and Adults with Disabilities— A Study of Assitance for Early Special Education of Hearing-Impaired in Sri Lanka in the 1980s —

....................................................................................................................................... Hiroko FURUTAAttempt at Community Participation in Japan’s Grant Aid Cooperation

— Case Study of Water Supply Project in Satellite Area of Lusaka —.............................................................................. Naoki MORI / Yuji MARUO / Ichiro TAKAMATSU

NOTE

Potential of Cost-Sharing Implementation Contributing to the Sustainability of Training Programs— Cost-Sharing Experiment by Trainees in the Social Forestry Training Project in Kenya —

..................................................................................................................................Hiromi YAMAUCHIAppropriateness of Introducing Automatic X-ray Film Processing Equipment

— An Example of Improved Image Quality for Chest X-rays Using Automatic X-ray Film ProcessingEquipment in the Nepal TB Center —

..................................................................................... Takuji DATE / Junko DATE / Ikushi ONOZAKI

INFORMATION

The Third Country Study for Japan’s Official Development Assistance to the Republic of the Philippines

Institute for International CooperationJapan International Cooperation Agency

Technology and Development

ISSN 0914-918X



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EDITORIAL BOARDManaging Editor: KATO, Keiichi Managing Director, Institute for International Cooperation, Japan International

Cooperation Agency (JICA)

Members: (Alphabetical order in family name)ASANUMA, Shinji JICA Guest Development Specialist / Professor at Hitotsubashi UniversityENDO, Akira Managing Director, Medical Cooperation Department, JICAJIBIKI, Takanori Managing Director, Social Development Study Departmen, JICAKANDA, Michio Managing Director, Grant Aid Management Department, JICAKITAMURA, Takanori Managing Director, Planning and Evaluation Department, JICAMATSUOKA, Kazuhisa Managing Director, Regional Department I (Southeast Asia and

Indo-China), JICAMIHIRA, Keisuke Managing Director, Mining and Industrial Development Study Department,

JICANISHIMAKI, Ryuzo Managing Director, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Development Study,

JICAUTSUMI, Seiji Professor at Osaka University

Technology and Development is published once a year by the Institute for International Cooperation (IFIC). Thearticles are selected and translated from its original Japanese edition, Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu. Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu, having been published twice a year by the IFIC since 1985, specializes in studies of techni-cal cooperation regarding developing countries’natural, socio-economic and cultural environment. It aims to provideopportunities for presenting papers to those engaged in development projects and thereby to contribute to the furtheranceof international technical cooperation. Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu accepts papers in Japanese. For more detail, please refer to the back of its front page or theJICA Home Page (http://www.jica.go.jp/kenkyushi/menu.html) The IFIC introduces the latest information related to JICA through the JICA Home Page (http://www.jica.go.jp/).Users who have access to this Home Page can read all the contents of research papers and case studies presented inTechnology and Development, No.9 to No.14 (http://www.jica.go.jp/english/publication/index.html) and the JapaneseJournal Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu, the original version of Technology and Development. from No.24 (http://www.jica.go.jp/kenkyushi/menu.html).

Views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view or policies of the Japan Interna-tional Cooperation Agency (JICA), or of any organization with which the authors may be associated.

CONTENTS

ARTICLE

International Cooperation Activities and Anthropology— Problems in Japan’s Context —

Makio MATSUZONO ........................................................................................................................... 5Training World-Scale Professional Engineers

— In View of Secondment of Qualified Engineers for Technical Cooperation —Fumio NISHINO ................................................................................................................................. 13


Hisashi KOBAYASHI .......................................................................................................................... 21

CASE STUDY

Introduction of the User Free System at the National Maternal and Child Health Center in CambodiaTakako YAMADA / Hidechika AKASHI / Naoko FUJITA / Takako SUGIMOTO ........................... 33

Agricultural Development and Soybean Cultivation by Japanese Farmers in Paraguay— From the Introduction of Non-Tillage Cultivation to Environmental Conservation-Type Approach for Upland

Farming —Kazuo NAGAI ..................................................................................................................................... 41

Japan’s Assistance in the Field of Education to Children and Adults with Disabilities— A Study of Assitance for Early Special Education for Hearing-Impaired in Sri Lanka in the 1980s—

Hiroko FURUTA.................................................................................................................................. 49Attempt at Community Participation in Japan’s Grant Aid Cooperation

— Case Study of Water Supply Project in Satellite Area of Lusaka —Naoki MORI / Yuji MARUO / Ichiro TAKAMATSU......................................................................... 57

NOTE

Potential of Cost-Sharing Implementation Contributing to the Sustainability of Training Programs— Cost-Sharing Experiment by Trainees in the Social Forestry Training Project in Kenya —

Hiromi YAMAUCHI ............................................................................................................................ 67Appropriateness of Introducing Automatic X-ray Film Processing Equipment

— An Example of Improved Image Quality for Chest X-rays Using Automatic X-ray Film Processing Equip-ment in the Nepal TB Center —

Takuji DATE / Junko DATE / Ikushi ONOZAKI ................................................................................ 75

INFORMATION

The Third Country Study for Japan’s Official Development Assistance to the Republic of the Philippines.............................................................................................................................................................. 83



No.14 January 2001

5

International Cooperation Activities and Anthropology:Problems in Japan's Context

ARTICLE

International Cooperation Activities and Anthropology— Problems in Japan's Context —

Makio MATSUZONOProfessor

Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Tokyo Metropolitan University

Among industrialized countries, Japan is exceptional in that anthropology has very little involvement in aidprograms. This is even more surprising when we consider that Japan has been the largest donor country forthe last eight years. How should we consider this fact? The author supposes that the fact has not been amatter of concern for aid agencies in Japan.

As a result of Japan's assistance having gained a largest quantity of the presence of Japanese, and thenumber of Japanese involved in aid programs having increased, many Japanese anthropologists have hadincreasing contact with them abroad, and have come to exert more concern on development issues thanbefore. More and more young Japanese researchers and graduate students engaged in anthropology havebecome interested in this type of "practicing anthropology." With a few exceptions, however, Japan's aidagencies and anthropologists never cross paths, which reveals one of the problems of Japan's assistance. Inthis article, the author analyzes this phenomenon while referring to cases in western donor countries.

As reflected in the relationship between American anthropologists and the United States Agency forInternational Development (USAID), American anthropologists have always been involved in theirgovernment's aid programs, answering to high expectations and demands from the government and aidagencies. This does not mean, however, that anthropologists have been uncritical of development schemes.They have withdrawn from projects if they felt their professional ethics as anthropologists was being jeop-ardized. In the case of northern European countries, although the amount of international assistance theygive is not as large, donors have been giving active roles to anthropologists to conduct substantial basicsocial research.

It is sometimes said that the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has not been enthusiastic inassigning anthropologists because development anthropology is undeveloped in Japan. This remark is farfrom the truth. The real reason is that the system through which Japan's assistance has been carried out hasnever required a great degree of the knowledge and experience of anthropologists. Reflecting on earlierdevelopment assistance which took a modernization approach emphasizing economic and technologicaldevelopment, industrialized countries are now conducting people-centered development assistance under anew diagram which is marked by such key words as "social development," "human development,""grassroots," and "participatory development." JICA also has determined that its structural reform corre-spond with this trend. It will shift into a new organizational structure from January 2000 according to theJICA Annual Report 1999.

From an anthropologist's standpoint, it is apparent that social research is the frailest among all fieldswithin JICA-related projects and has been neglected. The characteristics of conventional Japanese assis-tance are epitomized by this fact, and for that reason, aid agencies and anthropologists have so far had littlecontact. The author, however, feels signs of change when speaking personally to people in JICA. As ananthropologist, and in expectation of the improvement under the new structure, the author would like totake this opportunity to express his concern for the collaborative work between JICA activities and anthro-pology.

I The Anthropologist Meets the Aid Agency

In a number of ways, Japanese anthropologists con-ducting fieldwork in developing countries have re-cently come in contact with official development as-

*This article was first published in Japanese in Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu Vol 15 No.2 (October 1999).

sistance (ODA) conducted by the Japanese govern-ment and the aid activities of private organizations.These anthropologists working abroad in cities or ru-ral villages have begun to come across other Japa-nese involved with the work of these aid agencies with

Technology and Development, No.14, 2001

6

more frequency, and local residents will point to aroad, sewage or drinking water system, irrigation sys-tem, paddy field, afforrestation project, hospital,school and the like, and say, "Japanese did that."Moreover, anthropologists trying to do field work havebeen met with requests more along the lines of aidwork than anthropology.

This essay will examine possible problems relatedto the involvement of anthropology in overseas de-velopment assistance, giving special emphasis toJapan's case, and making reference to examples fromEuropean and North American countries.

Here the term "anthropology" is used in the broadsense to mean cultural anthropology, and in the nar-row sense to mean social anthropology. Social an-thropology is the research of different cultures andsocieties existing in our own time period, and placesan emphasis on fieldwork. Social anthropologists holdthat it is not possible to understand or interpret cul-tural phenomena outside of the context of their socialframeworks. The development of social anthropologybegan in the1910s, developed chiefly by the Britishthrough fieldwork in the British colonies in India,Africa, Melanesia, and Southeast Asia. For this rea-son, social anthropology began with a deep involve-ment in problems relating to governance and socialchanges among indigenous peoples living under co-lonial rule. As epitomized by the existence of "gov-ernment anthropologists" funded by the British gov-ernment, a portion of Britain's social anthropologistswere dedicated to research and scholarship aimed atfacilitating the management of the colonies.

Meanwhile, cultural anthropology got its big startin 1879 with the establishment of the Bureau of Eth-nology by the United States federal government,which was charged with the research of Native Ameri-can peoples as part of government policy. At the turnof the century this research expanded to Central andSouth America, and during World War II a large num-ber of anthropologists joined such government agen-cies as the Wartime Information Bureau in Washing-ton, and engaged in the research of enemy countries.Because it is impossible to conduct fieldwork in acountry with which one is at war, these anthropolo-gists had no choice but to try to infer the cultural regu-larities of Japan and Germany from such sources ascopious volumes of written materials and films,records of interviews with emigrants, propaganda leaf-lets aimed at increasing the fighting spirit of the popu-lace, and records of the actions of enemy combat-ants. Through their work, the anthropologists workedout a research method called "culture at a distance."It is well known that Ruth F. Benedict used thismethod to write her work "The Chrysanthemum andthe Sword," despite the fact that she had never setfoot on Japanese soil.

Before and during World War II, Japan conductedon-site surveys in the former colonies and occupied ter-ritories in mainland China, Korea, Taiwan, Micronesia,

and Southeast Asia. With very few exceptions, thisresearch was not conducted by actual trained anthro-pologists, but rather took the form of academic re-gional studies undertaken by researchers in such di-verse fields as customary law, religion, sociology offamily, and history. The Japanese did not fully adoptthe body of knowledge and theory of European andAmerican anthropology until the end of the war, andit was not until the 1950s that social (cultural) an-thropology took root as a part of Japanese academism.Japan's Ministry of Education established the Grantin Aid for Scientific Research to support academicinvestigations abroad in 1963. This program origi-nally focused on Southeast Asia, subsequently spread-ing to Oceania, Africa, and East Asia. To this day,most anthropological overseas studies are funded bythe Grant in Aid for Scientific Research, and a fewprograms receive scarce financial support by privatefoundations (in 1999, responsibility for the Grant inAid for Scientific Research to be conducted in for-eign countries passed from the Ministry of Educa-tion to the Japan Society for the Promotion of Sci-ence, but the source of the funding remains the na-tional government).

Today, as we greet the close of the 20th century,the environment surrounding anthropologists' field-work has been totally transformed. Now that theformer colonies have gained independence as sover-eign nations, anthropologists submit thick study plansto concerned agencies in the partner country, and aregranted approval after clarifying the costs of the studyand the source of funding, and undergoing a reviewprocess. Anthropologists are also obligated to submitthe results of their research. In many countries, it isnot possible to gain approval for a new or continuedstudy before the results of the last one have been sub-mitted. Each time anthropologists travel abroad, theyconduct all these complicated negotiations with thegovernment of the partner country themselves.

Anthropologists have also come to take a great dealof care in their work, deeply examining the humanrights of local residents and the ethics of anthropolo-gists, and also putting much careful thought into thetypes of studies they conduct, their research meth-ods, and presenting visual records and research pa-pers. Even if research funding is given to a group,most anthropologists live alone for a long time in aforeign city, or rural farming or fishing village. Thismeans that they develop deep bonds with the localcommunity, and would not even be capable of sur-viving without their cooperation, let alone achievingtheir original research goals. Anthropologists are alsoconstantly aware that while the results of their researchwill become part of their body of work, leading touniversity positions and promotions, it is difficult touse these results to directly benefit the lives of thepeople. For this reason it is all the more that mostanthropologists are beset with feelings of indebted-ness and guilt as they conduct their fieldwork, forcing

7


them to be that much more conscious of human rights.Thus, the atmosphere of anthropological fieldwork

has changed. Gone are the days of imperialism, whenresearchers could conduct any studies that theywanted, with the power of the ruling country to backthem up. And yet two aspects remain unchanged. Thefirst is that the goal of anthropological studies — andthis is particularly true of social anthropology — re-mains the analysis of contemporary human relation-ships, including family, kinship, gender, age, socialhierarchies, and economic and religious groupingswithin the community. Recently, however, this re-search has not been confined solely to currently ex-isting societies and cultures: as a reflection of rapidchanges taking place on the worldwide scale, as typi-fied by such expressions as "globalization" and "newworld order," there has been an increasing trend toexamine social and cultural changes over a relativelyshort time frame, for instance the past 10 years, theperiod since independence, or the past 100 years, fromthe period of colonial rule to the present.

The other aspect that has not changed is a fairlyobvious one: the regions that anthropologists fromindustrialized countries have sketched through theirstudies have in general overlapped with those requir-ing attention by the industrialized country, either be-cause it is within the country's politico-economicsphere of influence, or in terms of foreign relations.The active use of cultural anthropologists' knowledgeand experience in the United States, particularly fordeveloping foreign relations strategy and policies toreduce inter-ethnic tensions inside the country, is onemanifestation of this fact.

In the case of Japan as well, there has been a ten-dency for the regions studied by anthropologists toreflect strategically important regions for the country'snational interest (including the earnings of privateenterprise) in terms of foreign relations, albeit in aslightly different sense from that of the United States.One of the reasons for this is the fact that unlike theUnited States and Europe, Japan does not have a greatnumber of Christian groups and other private foun-dations and funds which financially support research-ers' overseas studies; as stated earlier, in Japan mostanthropologists' overseas studies are funded by thenational tax. This does not mean, however, that thepanels responsible for selecting overseas academicstudies for funding are consciously selecting thoseregions that are important for the national interest.Rather, anthropologists submit a great deal of studyproposals to the countries in terms of foreign rela-tions, in which many private companies have set upforeign operations, and which are receiving muchforeign aid, and as a natural consequence of this, agreat deal of these proposals are approved. This is anexpression of Japan's collective cultural stance - apicture of how Japan views the world as a whole, ona level surpassing the individual interests of thosesubmitting proposals and those approving them.

In fact, the frequency of Japanese anthropologists'studies in specific countries have roughly corre-sponded to the amount of aid each country receivesfrom Japan, both in the form of loans and grant aid.Though, to this, there are a few exceptions that haverational explanations: for instance Central and SouthAmerica, which have never been extensively studiedby Japanese researchers, and China and the formerSoviet Union, which until very recently have refusedacademic studies from abroad.

Thus, the compatriot anthropologists from indus-trialized countries come across during their sojournsin developing countries have changed from the mag-istrates, law enforcement officers, and military per-sonnel of the imperialist era, to those working for aidagencies and import/export companies.

The author's first visit to Africa was in 1974. At thattime, he came across a group of four or five JapanOverseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) travellingaround Ethiopian farming villages giving vaccina-tions, and recalls the kindness that these volunteersshowed him. Since 1977, most of the author's studieshave focused on rural farming villages in westernKenya. In Kenya as well, most of the fellow Japanesethat the author met were young men and womenJOCV members teaching agriculture and fish farm-ing, or serving as math and science teachers in sec-ondary schools. Since there were very few Japaneseliving in the Kenyan countryside, they became veryclose, often visiting each other's lodgings. Eventu-ally the Japan International Cooperation Agency(JICA) established an office in Nairobi, and perhapsdue to the increased number of cooperation projectsand the enlarged size of the office's budget, in addi-tion to volunteers the author began to meet more Japa-nese administrative workers, dispatched experts, andpersonnel from consulting companies. Although theKisii District of western Kenya, which has been thefocus of the author's studies, has been overlooked byforeign-funded development projects, over the past fouror five years the author has come to hear of teams fromconsulting companies touring hospitals and clinics, andJICA personnel driving around the district to select sec-ondary schools to which to send Japanese instructors.

Without a doubt, anthropologists conducting field-work in Southeast Asia have come across ODA per-sonnel from Japan with more frequency than those ofus conducting studies in Africa. Almost no anthro-pologists are directly involved with ODA, and this istrue for the majority of the author's research col-leagues. For example, they probably have no knowl-edge of JICA's internal organization or the actual ad-ministrative procedures involved in assistance work.Nevertheless, anthropologists have formed an imageof ODA, for instance through brief conversations withaid workers met in the field, their reputations amonglocal residents, and information taken from the massmedia. And without a doubt, no small number of an-thropologists have been made use of for their knowl-


8

edge of the local area and related literature by aidpersonnel, including consulting firms. And althoughthis may not be the most appropriate expression, manyanthropologists show the unease of one without a fullgrasp of the facts, saying things like "the specter ofdevelopment is roaming about developing countries."This unease is due to the fact that although develop-ment assistance has the power to greatly alter localsociety, anthropologists are not well aware of what isgoing on, what is about to go on, and the intentionsbehind the aid.

II The Relationship Between Anthropologistsand Aid Agencies: The United States,

Northern Europe, and Japan

Japan is a major exception among the industrializedcountries, in that its national aid agencies do not ac-tively recruit anthropologists as aid practitioners, nordo they take advantage of anthropologists' expertise.Why is this the case? An easily understood and easyto accept explanation is offered by Yamamori: "Thefact that Japan's aid-implementing institutions showno clear intentions of utilizing cultural anthropologyor cultural anthropologists in any concrete way, whilethe cultural anthropologists themselves have beenreluctant in practical applications of their knowledgeand experience, has hindered cooperation between thetwo. Another hurdle for cooperation between aid agen-cies and cultural anthropologists has been their deepmutual mistrust."1

It is the author's opinion that this explanation oflaying the blame on both parties and claiming thatthere is mutual distrust gets the facts wrong, and isunconstructive as well. An examination of the rela-tionship between the anthropological community andthe government and aid agencies in the United Statessince the 1950s reveals the following four points:2

1) As shown by the International CooperationAgency (ICA), the predecessor of the UnitedStates Agency for International Development(USAID) in the latter half of the 1950s, and byUSAID since the adoption of Social SoundnessAnalysis (SSA) in the mid-1970s, after a policychange shifting emphasis to socio-cultural fac-tors in the aid-recipient country, official aid agen-cies have recruited anthropologists and used themin the field only when they have decided thatactively using them will have some sort of prac-tical value.

2) At other times, when the administration in officehas had a biased view against sociologists - for

instance during the Reagan years - the numberof anthropologists employed overseas has beendecreased, by setting an upper limit on the num-ber that could be employed, or discontinuinglong-term contracts.

3) The United States' development anthropologywent into hibernation from the 1960s to the early1970s. In other words, anthropologists removedthemselves from the aid scene when they felt astrong clash between the philosophy and meth-odology of overseas aid and their own profes-sional ethics, as when anthropologists becamedisillusioned with an aid paradigm emphasizingtechnology-centered, capitally intensive urbandevelopment assistance and macro-economics,and began quitting from aid agencies (this coin-cides with the time during which anthropologistsactually became caught up in American guerillaand propaganda campaigns in Central and SouthAmerica and Indonesia, and the anthropologicalcommunity opposed the United States' foreignrelations and national defense policies).

4) Most anthropologists are employed by universi-ties and other research institutions, with only avery small minority working full-time in appliedfields, including development. From the latterhalf of the 1970s until the early 1980s, a largenumber of anthropologists were active in aidagencies, creating what was variously called a"development anthropology boom" and a "goldrush of anthropologists toward the applied so-cial sciences." Even during this period, however,as an example in 1980 USAID only employed50 full-time anthropologists.

Thus, the employment of anthropologists in theUnited States government's aid activities in develop-ing countries has been largely determined by the ex-pectations of official aid agencies toward anthropolo-gists, and by the reactions of anthropologists to theiraid philosophies. Even in the United States, whichhas the largest number of anthropological researchinstitutes in the world, and a large number of univer-sities with research facilities dedicated to applied an-thropology, anthropologists have only a marginal rolein the national power structure, and even in the powerstructures of their own universities, compared to le-gal, political, economic and other scholars. A worldthat values hard, quantitative data can probably onlygive a marginal role to fields like anthropology, whichemphasize soft, qualitative data. And yet this verymarginality can serve as an anthropologist's forte: thisgives them the ability to sniff out ethnocentric biaseson the part of the donor country and a deep aversion

1. Masami Yamamori, "Kaihatsu Enjo to Bunka Jinruigaku (Development Aid and Cultural Anthropology)," H. Sato (ed.), Enjo Kenkyu Nyumon (An Introduction to AidResearch) (chapter 6), Institute of Developing Economies, pp. 204-205, 1996.

2. This paper's depiction of the relationship between anthropology and aid agencies in the United States is based mainly on the following references; A. Escobar,"Anthropology and the Development Encounter: the Making and Marketing of Development Anthropology," American Ethnologost, 18(4): pp. 658-682, 1991; E. C.Green, "Themes in the Practice of Development Anthropology," Practicing Development Anthropology, E. C. Green (ed.) ., Westview Press, pp. 1-9, 1986; A. Hoben,"Anthropologists and Development," Annual Review of Anthropology 1982, Annual Reviews Inc., pp. 349-375, 1982.

9


against using development aid to further political andcommercial goals, allowing them to serve as watch-dogs. However, there is still no doubt that official aidagencies have the final word in the role that anthro-pologists will play in aid activities. The level of un-derstanding that aid agencies have for anthropology,and the level at which they decide to employ them,are independent variables, and the number of anthro-pologists who participate in aid, and their role therein,are dependent variables.

Now let us look at the Japanese situation. The so-cial and cultural transformations that have taken placein developing countries over the past several decadeshave been a major topic of research among Japaneseanthropologists as well, and this tendency has growneven stronger since the end of the cold war. In devel-oping countries, a number of tensions have beenformed between nation building policies and the recon-struction of unique regional cultures and ethnicities.There is not a lack of relationship between these ten-sions and national policies toward assistance and re-quests from the international community concerningpopulation issues, family planning, multiparty politi-cal systems, and women's and other issues (includingbacklashes against them), as well as the activities ofgovernment agencies, churches, and NGOs in com-munities concerned with such policies. This has re-sulted in a large amount of research searching forapproaches to the issue of ‘development as culture’from the aspect of local adaptability. For example,the author has studied such topics as male participa-tion in family planning and the soapstone industryand cooperatives over the past several years, whilehis research colleagues have studied such topics as:school enrollment, old age, and funeral insuranceunions; women's mutual benefit organizations; chang-ing administrative districts and ethnic consciousness;and the splintering and deviation of the African inde-pendent church and regional political organization.Additionally, several graduate students have researchedsuch topics as: modern and traditional birth controlmethods; the decision making process in the selectionof birth control methods; and customary and nationallaw concerning marriage, divorce, and child custody.

This tendency is not limited to the example of theauthor and his colleagues. In Southeast Asia, Austra-lia, and the various regions of Africa, Japanese an-thropologists have been forced to make the issue ofchanges directly or indirectly affected by developmenta primary or secondary focus of their research, in-cluding underground resource development, emer-gency disaster relief, deforestation, social changescaused by labor force movement accompanied bymigration and other factors, and development anddisputes over the land rights of indigenous peoples.This has made it necessary to read not only orthodoxethnographies and research papers written by anthro-pologists, but also reports written by members of aidagencies. At this time one is always met with a pain-

ful and unfortunate realization that the useful reportsare always those written by American and EuropeanODA agencies and NGOs; one almost never findsreports concerning Japanese ODA, and even if onedoes, they almost never provide valuable backgroundinformation.

The reports that the author has found most valu-able in his Kenya studies have been written byUSAID, as well as the Center for Development Re-search (CDR) of the Danish International Develop-ment Assistance Agency (DANIDA), and the Swed-ish Agency for Research Cooperation (SAREC), theresearch branch of the Swedish International Devel-opment Cooperation Agency (Sida). These are full-fledged reports of field studies on population, familyplanning, and maternal and child care, and other top-ics, following at least six month’s fieldwork, and con-taining 100 to 200 pages or more. These reports arecarried by the University of Nairobi, and if they couldnot be found there, they could easily be ordered, some-times free of charge. One interesting point of com-parison with JICA is that these development studiesconducted by the United States and Europe are notlimited to regions in which projects are being imple-mented. Anthropologists are also sent to conduct ba-sic studies in other regions to identify issues to bestudied. The fact that DANIDA and Sida, whose bud-gets are smaller than that of JICA, are doing this pointsto fundamental differences in approaches to aid.

Recently, JICA has become very active at inform-ing the taxpayers of its activities. It made a great dealof progress at disclosure by such means as printedmaterials and the Internet. However, it has been saidthat neither JICA nor the consulting firms it contractshave yet reached the point where they conduct wellput-together social studies, write reports on them, andmake these reports easily available to social scienceresearchers in a variety of fields.

Anthropologists have the largest influence on offi-cial development assistance in such northern Euro-pean countries as Denmark and Sweden. In the caseof Sweden in particular, Sida and the social anthro-pology department of the University of Sweden havesigned an agreement in which the department pro-vides consulting services to Sida, and a developmentresearch unit has been set up in the university to trainand refer experts. Here, the focus is given to develop-ment in rural farming villages in East Africa. In addi-tion, SAREC provides scholarships to graduate stu-dents to conduct roughly one-year "thesis studies"overseas for their doctoral dissertations, in part withthe goal of preparing them for future careers in de-velopment. Professor N. T. Hakansson, a friend theauthor met during a Kenya study, once conducted sucha study in the Kisii District of Kenya on one of thesescholarships, the result of which was a thesis studytitled "Bridewealth, Women and Land: Social Changeamong the Gusii of Kenya" (1988).


10

III JICA and Anthropology

Katsurai, who was once a JICA senior advisor, haswritten the following concerning why Japan is so poorat participatory development: "Japanese aid is gov-ernment-oriented. NGOs are not very active, and thereis not much aid at the grassroots level ... Agriculturaldevelopment at the grassroots level would requireknowledge of the country's history and culture, as wellas a facility with foreign languages, at times requir-ing the local language(s) in addition to English andFrench. It is also not easy to adapt to life in a ruralagricultural village. This has effectively made it quitedifficult to even find experts who are up to the task."3

Katsurai appears to have failed to notice that Japanhas researchers and graduate students specializing incultural and social anthropology, who form a profes-sional group with the capabilities matching Katsurai'sdescription of "experts who are up to the task" to atee. This being the case, if the reason for this fact isthat Japan's development and applied anthropologyare underdeveloped, then it is a fact that Japan's an-thropology is behind that of Europe and NorthAmerica in this respect. Yet the only way for this fieldto develop would be for aid agencies to recognize theusefulness of anthropology, and directly involve an-thropologists in aid activities, as was done in Europeand North America.

Your average, "ordinary" anthropologist does notonly have a large amount of fieldwork under his orher belt. He or she also has reviewed the relevant lit-erature, including historical documents, and haslearned the needed theories and concepts. The anthro-pologist is also able to use the first-hand experienceof having conducted studies all over the world to geton with local communities, and also feels that knowl-edge of the local language is an absolute necessity. Ithas been claimed that there is a great gap betweenthe level of interaction and closeness achieved withthe local community, and the amount of knowledgegained, between the anthropologist and the ODA per-sonnel in the developing country for a preliminarystudy or post-project evaluation survey, due to the gapin actual understanding of local residents' actions andpsychology. Almost all anthropologists with an inter-est in aid activities feel that the things these two par-ties call "fieldwork" are, while similar on the surface,of completely different natures.

The author believes that if the anthropologist is inagreement with the content and methodology of theaid, there are many ways in which the "ordinary" an-thropologist can contribute. Hosokawa, an anthropolo-gist researching the Australian Aborigines, has stated:"When asked whether sticking one's nose into devel-opment issues makes one an applied anthropologist,

... my answer is ‘no’."4 Hosokawa was not writing inthe context of joining an aid agency and working there,but rather how anthropologists commit to the indi-vidual examples of aid they encounter, but the authoragrees with Hosokawa's opinion, and also feels thatthe same can be applied if one joins the donor partyand works as one of them. In fact, if there were anywould-be "development anthropologists" with no aca-demic achievements as ordinary anthropologists, andwho went around all the time shouting "development!development!" doing nothing but work linked to aidagencies (the author does not know if such peopleactually exist), they would not be of any use to theaid agency, and would be downright harmful to localcommunity residents.

Recently, more national universities have createdgraduate programs in such fields as international co-operation research and international development re-search (e.g. Nagoya University, Kobe University,Hiroshima University, and Yokohama University).These programs accept a large number of students,and as of the present they seem to be popular withstudents. But most of the instructors in these researchprograms are economists, followed by specialists ininternational politics and international law. As far asthe author is informed, although there are residentand invited cultural anthropologists teaching in theseprograms, the actual hours they teach as lead profes-sors is small, and they seem to have been added tothe programs almost as an afterthought. These pro-grams do not employ a single full-time anthropolo-gist. It is unfortunate that even these universities onlygive anthropologists this level of a role in develop-ment studies. Anthropologists cannot help but feelserious doubts about what kind of development spe-cialists these programs will produce.

The author referred earlier to the following state-ment by Yamamori: "[A] hurdle for cooperation be-tween aid agencies and cultural anthropologists hasbeen their deep mutual mistrust." In fact, however,there is no "deep mutual distrust": in Japan, unfortu-nately, the two parties have almost nothing to do witheach other whatsoever. Even mutual distrust, whileunfortunate, could only arise after a certain numberof anthropologists had actually participated in the aidproject cycle in a number of aspects, and had pub-lished their experiences and critiques. The author per-sonally knows friends, acquaintances, and at timeseven graduate students who have participated in evalu-ation studies and served on committees in Japan. Buttheir numbers are very small, and although havingheard reports of their activities in person, the authorhas never seen them at conference presentations or inthe literature, nor he has seen their experiences pub-lished. The author's overall impression has been that

3. Koichiro Katsurai, "Sankagata Kaihatsu (Participatory Development)," Chikyu Kibo no Kadai: Kokusai Kyoryoku Gairon (Global Issues: Introduction to InternationalCooperation), Institute for International Cooperation, Japan International Cooperation Agency, p 187, 1995.

4. Hiroaki Hosokawa, "Kaihatsu Mondai to Jinrui Gakusha: Ikanaru Katachi de Kakawari au ka (Development Issues and the Anthropologist: How Do they Interact?),"Minzokugaku Kenkyu (The Japanese Journal of Ethnology, 59 (1): 69, 1994.

11


this is because they were only given a marginal rolein the project in question, and were not able to be-come involved enough to feel a commitment to it.The following statement in the quote by Yamamori isprobably true: "Japan's aid-implementing institutionsshow no clear intentions of utilizing cultural anthro-pology or cultural anthropologists in any concrete way."

In JICA's recent publications, including its yearlyannual report and evaluation reports, one frequentlycomes across expressions like "aid with a face," "re-specting developing countries' self-help efforts andgiving them a sense of ownership," "consideration forlocal societies," "social impact study," "bottom-up,""grassroots development," "with the participation ofthe local community," "women in development(WID)," and "appropriate technology." This may beinterpreted as the beginning of a shift from the pastemphasis on infrastructure-centered economic devel-opment toward more concern for societies and people(even allowing for criticism that this is merely copy-ing Europe and North America). It is with interestand hope that the author observes what concrete stepsJICA will take to develop its aid activities so that thenew aid concept indicated by these core concepts doesnot end as a mere book title, and in particular, whatinnovated steps it will take to better understand localsocieties and people.5

Anthropologists are divided over whether this is agood or bad thing (the author is absolutely convincedthat it is a bad thing), but it is a fact that JICA andanthropologists have not had any direct interaction.This may sound like a one-sided opinion, but the au-thor feels that this is because up until now, JICA'sorganization has not been prepared to accept anthro-pologists. As mentioned several times already, thereis a clearly growing number of anthropologists withan interest in the rapid social and cultural changescaused by development assistance, and who are re-searching this topic. This tendency is particularlystrong among young researchers and graduate stu-dents. The author personally knows of a number ofresearch groups, formed mainly of anthropologists,dedicated to development-aid related topics. Reportsof these activities are growing in anthropological con-ferences and journals, and special editions dedicatedto these topics are being seen. Tokyo MetropolitanUniversity, where the author is employed, has inviteda part-time lecturer from a JICA-affiliated organiza-tion at the request of graduate students specializingin social anthropology, and plans to make the samerequest to JICA next year. It is hoped that both aidagencies and the anthropological community will stopthinking of events involving the other party as "some-

thing happening over there," leading the author tobelieve that perhaps an era of true communication iscoming soon.

This paper will conclude with a brief listing of de-sires and expectations from the point of view of an-thropology. (1) Social studies before, during and after projects

must be enhanced. It may be necessary to changethe concept of "study" itself. It seems that what ismeant by the expression "aid with a face" means"showing the face of the Japanese." JICA's projectevaluation reports mention technology, economy,and organization, but there is almost no mentionof distinctive social or cultural characteristics. Aprerequisite for conducting "face-to-face" aid is en-hancing studies, and it also requires greater inno-vation in the selection of members for study mis-sions, and the determination of study periods, con-tents, and methods. This would probably makethese reports extremely interesting.

(2) No matter what type of aid is being planned, thoseinvolved with the donor country should employmore creativity regarding the kind of lives that lo-cal residents' grandparents lived. Anthropologists'enthnographies would be useful in this regard. Oneof the biggest problems with modern developmentis that it forces the latest technologies and ideason local communities without giving them anychoices. Even people who today wear suits andbelieve in Christianity still retain the majority oftheir grandparents' spiritual universe, and live inbasically unchanged social systems. The cultureof each region is the entirety of its society, eco-nomics, technologies, faith and the like — "mod-ernizing" just one aspect of this is not only reck-less, it is nothing more than a fantasy.

(3) The granting of scholarships by SAREC for gradu-ate students' doctoral dissertations has already beentouched on, but couldn't JICA do the same thing,in addition to the dispatch of Japan Overseas Co-operation Volunteers (JOCV)? The author believesthis is a good idea for developing future humanresources. The number of anthropological gradu-ate students with an interest in development-relatedissues is clearly growing. Incidentally, the Minis-try of Education has a study-abroad program inAsian and other countries aimed at graduate stu-dents, but this program does not cover Oceania,South America, or Africa. Graduate students re-searching these regions have a difficult time fund-ing their research.

5. The author's understanding of JICA's organization is extremely limited. It is based on JICA's publications available in book stores, newspaper articles related to aidthat the author has clipped from several years' issues of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. JICA Annual Report and Project Evaluation Reports over the past several yearswere provided by the editorial office of a research journal, Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu. The author also referred to several publications which provide critical andadvocacy comments on JICA's activities, and comments from friends and colleagues in the anthropological community who have been involved in JICA’s work. Theauthor has also read "'Social Dimensions' in the Organizational Culture of JICA and a Case Study of Malaria Program in Tanzania," the master's thesis of Eri Sugita,an ex-: JICA official currently studying for a doctorate in development anthropology at Florida University. This was a huge aid in the author's understanding of "JICAculture." However, all opinions contained in this article belong to the author, and bear no relation to the references and comments mentioned here.

13

Training World-Scale Professional Engineers

ARTICLE

Training World-Scale Professional Engineers— In View of Secondment of Qualified Engineers for Technical Cooperation —

Fumio NISHINO Professor, National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies

One of the roles of the World Trade Organization (WTO) established in 1995 is to promote the cross-boundary liberalization of personnel services. This is based on the recognition that liberalizing the ser-vices that high quality specialists provide will contribute to the development of the world, which is movingtowards globalization. Included in these specialists are professional engineers.

In November 1999, "APEC Engineer Register," under the auspices of the Asia Pacific Economic Coop-eration (APEC), was established with the consent of seven countries and one economy: Australia, Canada,Korea, Thailand, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia, and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Itspurpose is to liberalize the services that internationally qualified engineers provide. The eight countries/economy discussed and agreed upon the technical standard that engineers must meet in order to be quali-fied for the registration.

APEC Engineers must possess an appropriate level of technical competency in order to be recognized asquality Professional Engineers at a member country of APEC. The APEC Engineer Registration standardis set higher than the domestic standard for professional engineers. Competent engineers among the aboveeight countries/economy who can contribute to the development of the APEC region are recognized re-gardless of nationality and are assessed by the same criteria for technological skill.

There is little doubt that Japanese engineers, as a whole, maintain an excellent standard. However, whenit comes to technological cooperation with developing countries, there is no direct link between the excel-lence of Japanese engineers as a whole and the individual competency required by an engineer for techni-cal cooperation. Though the standard of economic development varies from country to country, there aremany excellent engineers in Asian developing countries. The number of engineers registered in the APECEngineer Register in Southeast Asia will grow from several thousands to tens of thousands in the nearfuture. There are far more excellent engineers in India, China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

Technology, unlike science, requires experience. When Japanese engineers are dispatched to developingcountries for technical cooperation, those with a wealth of experience and expertise need to be dispatched.Engineers who lack language competency should not be dispatched. Unless high quality engineers aredispatched, the technical cooperation may foster anti-Japanese sentiment. The officials in charge of thetechnical cooperation must take this into account.

Introduction

A decline in the general academic ability of Japanesestudents has been reported many times in our Japa-nese newspapers. Reflecting upon the overheated en-trance examination competition starting in elemen-tary school and carrying on into junior high and se-nior high schools, some sectors have called for greaterlatitude in education. This latitude is regarded by someas the cause of the decline in academic ability, butthe author does not believe that having greater lee-way in education is directly connected to the declinein academic ability of students. Even though moretime is being spent to develop individual talent rather

than simply acquiring knowledge in elementary andintermediate education, there has been no change inthe reality of the examination competitions to tertiaryeducation. The students aiming at better tertiary edu-cation are still spending the same amount of time onstudying.

Due to a decrease in the birthrate, universities aremaking a desperate effort to recruit students in orderto survive. In their effort to recruit more students,however, many schools have omitted subjects fromtheir entrance examinations that are necessary to com-plete major as well as some basic subjects that, al-though not directly required, are essential to generalstudies. This is presumed to be an important factor in

*This article was first published in Japanese in Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu Vol 16 No.1 (April 2000).


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the decline of the academic ability for some of thestudents entering universities.

One extreme example of this is that some universi-ties have omitted mathematics from their examina-tion requirements for entry into the Faculty of Eco-nomics. One newspaper article reported the math testresults of freshmen of a Faculty of Economics whohad not chosen mathematics in their entrance exami-nation subjects. The mathematics test comprised ofthree types of questions: 1) making arithmetic calcu-lations of equations including addition, subtraction,multiplication and division, 2) solving simultaneouslinear equations with two unknowns, and 3) solvinga quadratic equation. The average score of the testtakers was around 30 out of 100 points. With thiskind of result, it will be very difficult to teach eco-nomics to these students.

Working as economic advisers in developing coun-tries is one of the options in technical cooperation.These advisors are quite different from those studentswith low academic ability about whom the newspa-per stories were written. They not only maintainedhigh academic achievement in university, but alsoactively engage in the real world with outstandingcompetency in their fields.

It seems that the situation is not as extreme for stu-dents who major in the natural sciences. Yet, thereare some cases in which students who did not takethe related entrance examination subject were admit-ted to biology, physics or chemistry-related majors.In most cases, however, these students did not choosetheir subjects only as a test taking strategy. Most stu-dents specializing in the natural sciences might studythe subjects needed to pursue their majors in univer-sities.

A big issue is how motivated are university stu-dents, who have spent a lot of time since their child-hood preparing for the entrance examination, to study.Although the lifetime employment system in Japanhas started crumbling, it still persists. Once employed,one must work like a horse, which is still the realitythat most students are aware of. It is understandable,however, as natural for students to want to spend atleast four years out of their lives on whatever theywant to do. Student with inherent qualification canpursue both.

Japan's GNP per capita in terms of the US dollar,though it fluctuates with the exchange rate, is approxi-mately US$35,000. Excluding a few small countriesthat are rich in resources, Japan has one of the high-est GNPs in the world. Japan, a country scarce in re-sources except for human resources, owes a lot toengineers for its high-level and competitiveness inprice production status. Acquiring foreign currencythrough its excellent technology has contributed sig-nificantly to its GNP. Japanese production bases ofindustrial goods stretch across Europe, the UnitedStates and Asian countries. The people who supportthe technology that is the basis for industrial prod-

ucts are the engineers and plant workers who gradu-ated from the Faculty of Engineering and the like,and are engaged in the development, design and re-search of products.

For Japan, which aims to stand on its technologi-cal development, the importance of the role of engi-neers will never decrease. We can say that the powerof engineers is in itself Japan's economic power.

A lot of venture businesses have grown out of Sili-con Valley, but it is said that it is hard for venturebusinesses to grow in Japan. We cannot deny the sig-nificance of the growth of venture businesses, but itcould be more important for Japan to maintain thepower of its engineers as a whole. This is well dem-onstrated by Japan's current economic status.

It is essential for Japan to maintain its economicposition. There is a big expectation placed on engi-neering students who form the foundation of Japan'sstatus. In order to foster outstanding engineers andlet them play an active role in industry, the environ-ment which can facilitate their growth, including uni-versity education, needs to be improved more thanever.

I Professional Engineers, and Their Image

Not limited to technology, many countries set nationalqualifications (or semi-national qualifications) forproviders of professional services and specializedskills. These qualifications can be categorized intotwo types: job-exclusive qualifications, which allowan individual to perform his/her job with a license,and title-exclusive qualifications, which allow an in-dividual to use a title.

In many countries worldwide, an individual whomeets minimum conditions in which he/she can per-form technological services independently is ac-knowledged to be an engineer. A government, state,or quasi-governmental agency grants qualificationsto individuals who have reached the required stan-dard, and guarantees their competency in being ableto perform the above minimum requirement.

To differentiate these engineers from other ordi-nary engineers who can perform technical jobs, manyof the Anglo-Saxon countries call them "ProfessionalEngineers" (PE). Although the acquisition of thisqualification simply satisfies the minimum conditionof competency, they are recognized as full-fledgedengineers. PE covers many fields, many of whichapply to title-exclusive qualifications. PE requires theability to apply the basic sciences of engineering, andperform tasks that require ingenuity, or innovation.Here lays the essential difference between skilledworkers and engineers.

The most common reason for setting qualificationsis to make it easier for service purchasers to judgethe quality of the service in advance. Consulting adoctor or buying a new house in this case. As far as

15


private housing is concerned, the purchaser may beable to judge the quality of the product by looking ata model of the prototype product, such as pre-fabri-cated houses, which have clear specifications. Otherexamples include having legal or accounting qualifi-cations. Although a customer could judge the abilityof the service provider, the criteria for judging thequalifications of an individual will be vague. That iswhy qualification systems are designed to evaluatethe quality of each individual and judge whether he/she meets the minimum conditions required for ful-filling the tasks.

The process for becoming an engineer, as seen inAnglo-Saxon countries that have an education sys-tem similar to that of Japan, assumes that, upon com-pleting undergraduate courses, students have attaineda broad and basic academic foundation necessary inengineering, and have gained the basic knowledge oftheir specialized field with the ethics of being an en-gineer. They then accumulate practical experiencefor three to four years under the guidance of experts.1

In acknowledging students meeting the criteria forbeing called an engineer, there are slight differencesfrom country to country. Some countries regard thatgraduation fulfills the condition, other countries set aspecific examination prior to graduation in order tomeet the condition, and others set a separate exami-nation to meet the condition. Regarding work expe-rience, evaluating not only the content of the experi-ence but also the results of an examination to see whatthey gained is common. Although it varies from coun-try to country, the percentage of graduates who attainPE is between 20% and 40% of all engineering gradu-ates.

In continental Europe, where engineering educa-tion has not yet been popularized, it is traditionallydesigned to train students capable of practical engi-neering work as soon as they graduate. As a result, inmany cases, graduates attain the title of ProfessionalEngineer when they graduate.

When a service purchaser requires service abovethe minimum standard guaranteed by the country, theservice provider is generally selected based on his/her experience and other information. With increasedcases in which higher standards are required, gov-ernment agencies or academic associations related tospecialized are as have started to certify engineerswho meet more advanced criteria. The system for

specialized physicians is a typical example of thistrend.

II Activities of Engineers beyondNational Boundaries

Based on the idea that physical distribution beyondnational boundaries will contribute to the develop-ment of the world, the General Agreement on Tariffsand Trade (GATT) was established in 1948. In 1995,the GATT was dissolved and reformed as the WorldTrade Organization (WTO).2 A major difference be-tween the WTO and the GATT is that the WTO pro-motes the liberalization of personal service in addi-tion to the cross-boundary movement of commodi-ties. This is based on the recognition that liberaliz-ing the services provided by high quality specialistswill contribute to the development of the world, whichis moving toward the globalization.

The WTO addresses the liberalization of many spe-cialized services, including engineers, CPAs, lawyers,and physicians, etc. Needless to say, what the WTOaims to attain in the liberalization of services pro-vided by engineers, namely, the cross-boundary ac-tivities of engineers, is not targeted at all engineers,but at those who possess excellent competency. Theactivities of engineers beyond national boundarieshave not yet been discussed by the WTO, but sooneror later they will be discussed.

Prior to the establishment of the WTO, agreementsconcerning the mutual recognition of engineers weremade in many regions throughout the world. For ex-ample, treaties between Canada, the United States andMexico, and between Australia and New Zealand arealready in effect.3 Also there is a movement in SouthAmerica toward a regional treaty, and bilateral trea-ties have been concluded in Anglo-Saxon countriesand others.

Since there has been no appropriate forum in theAsian region for governments to discuss this agenda,the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) hasheld discussions for the purpose of mutual recogni-tion of engineers. The objective was to establish the"APEC Engineer Register" which would grant quali-fications to engineers who possess appropriate tech-nological competence to freely work in the APECeconomies.

1. Japan Engineering Consultants Association, ASCA Shokoku ni-okeru Gijutushi no Gijutu Teikyo ni-kansuru Jittai Chosa Hokokusho (Study Report on Actual ConditionConcerning Technological Provision by Technological Engineers in ASCA Countries),1998; Japan Engineering Consultants Association, Oshu ni-okeru GijutushaShikaku Seido to Sono Kokusaikan Unyo ni-kansuru Chosa Hokokusho (Study Report on Professional Engineers Qualification System in Europe and Its InternationalOperation),1998; Fumio Nishino, “Gijutushi Menkyo no Kokusai Sogo Shonin no Ugoki to Taiou - Sono1 (Trend of Mutual International Recognition of ProfessionalEngineers License and Measures No. 1),” Sekisan-Gijutsu, 231: 28-33 (August), 1997; Fumio Nishino, “Gijutushi Menkyo no Kokusai Sogo Shonin no Ugoki toTaiou - Sono 2 (Trend of Mutual International Recognition of Professional Engineers License and Measures No. 2),” Sekisan-Gijutsu, 232: 28-32 (September), 1997.

2. Service Trade Office, Economic Affairs Bureau in Ministry of Foreign Affairs, WTO - Sabisu Boeki Ippan Kyotei (WTO - General Agreement of Service Trade),Research Institute on International Issues, 1997.

3. Fumio Nishino, “Gijutushi Menkyo no Kokusai Sogo Shonin no Ugoki to Taiou - Sono1 (Trend of Mutual International Recognition of Professional EngineersLicense and Measures No. 1),” Sekisan-Gijutsu, 231: 28-33 (August), 1997; Fumio Nishino, “Gijutushi Menkyo no Kokusai Sogo Shonin no Ugoki to Taiou - Sono2 (Trend of Mutual International Recognition of Professional Engineers License and Measures No. 2),” Sekisan-Gijutsu, 232: 28-32 (September), 1997.

4. APEC HRD Working Group, The APEC Register, Japan APEC Monitoring Committee, Japan Engineering Consultants Association 1999.


16

The seven countries and one economy in the APECregion agreed to establish the Register.4 They dis-cussed and agreed to the technical standards that en-gineers must meet in order to be qualified for regis-tration. The aim of the Register is to encourage APECengineers to possess an appropriate level of technicalcompetency in order to be able to work anywherebeyond their national boundaries. In addition, the stan-dard for the registration is set higher than the domes-tic standard. Engineers are assessed by the same tech-nical criteria regardless of nationality, and competentengineers are recognized as those who can contributeto the development of the region.

In November 1999, the "APEC Engineer Regis-ter" was established with the consent of seven coun-tries and one economy: Australia, Canada, Korea,Thailand, Japan, New Zealand, Malaysia and theHong Kong Special Administrative Region. Indone-sia could not immediately participate in the programbecause of its domestic political situation. It will,however, join the program when its political situa-tion is stabilized. The US did not attend the confer-ence because there is no authority to represent thewhole country. In the United States, each state hasan administrative authority to which registered engi-neers belong. Those who agreed to the Register arenow waiting for the treaty to be concluded.

Registration for the "APEC Engineer Register," willbe soon set in practice in the region's participatingeconomies (seven countries and one economy) thathave agreed on the establishment of the APEC Engi-neer Register, prior to the treaty conclusion. Anyengineer who registers with the APEC Engineer Reg-ister will be recognized as a competent engineer,whose work beyond national boundaries will contrib-ute to the development of the APEC region.

III APEC Engineer Register

APEC Engineer is a title given to an engineer, pres-ently, in any of the eight participating economies. Aholder of the title is recognized to possess the tech-nological competency set by the APEC EngineerCoordinating Committee. As technological require-ments which the APEC Engineer should satisfy, theCoordinating Committee requires the following fivecriteria:5

1) The engineer must have completed the under-graduate engineering program approved eitherby a third party accreditation agency or by his/her own country.

2) The engineer must be recognized as capable ofperforming engineering work independently inhis own country, that is, to be a PE.

3) The engineer must have at least seven years ofactual work experience following the comple-

tion of an engineering undergraduate program.4) The engineer must have at least two years of ex-

perience in important engineering work.5) The engineer continues to develop his abilities to

maintain a satisfactory standard of competence.

The above criteria include completion of an engi-neering program. This was a measure to prevent end-less discussion on details in establishing the APECEngineer and, in the future, will broaden to allowopportunities for engineers who are not universitygraduates to be qualified.

The above criteria also include the condition ofbeing approved by a third party accreditation agency.This condition recognizes circumstances peculiar tothe Anglo-Saxon oriented countries; there are manycountries/regions which allow faculties to be estab-lished freely, thereby necessitating a third party or-ganization to accredit the education standard moreobjectively. The Washington Accord is the treaty thataims to give recognition of the minimum educationalstandard for engineering faculties in Ireland, Austra-lia, England, Canada, New Zealand, the United States,South Africa and the Hong Kong Special Adminis-trative Region. Accreditation agencies of these coun-tries study the minimum requirements for educationin member countries/economies in order to unify thestandards. The primary condition of the APEC Engi-neer assumes that the university graduate possessesthe same level of competency as that assumed in theWashington Accord. This is due to the fact that thestandard for establishing universities is different fromcountry to country in the APEC region.

There are more countries whose governments ap-prove the establishment of universities like Japan, andthe APEC region is not an exception. While in Ja-pan, the establishment approval is issued after strictexamination in accordance with the university estab-lishment standards, in some other APEC countries theprocess is less strict. Furthermore, in Japan after es-tablishment of a faculty or a department, an observa-tion committee periodically inspects the educationallevel and relevant conditions. If the committee findsa problem, it will issue a suggestion for improvement,and check on the result at a later time. Even if othercountries (in APEC) want to assess universities, thestandards among the various countries are not uni-fied as they are in the Washington Accord. As a re-sult, the Coordinating Committee requires studentswho have completed the engineering program ap-proved in their respective countries to take a test toprove that they have reached the same standard asgraduates approved by Washington Accord.

As mentioned before, Anglo-Saxon oriented coun-tries have the PE system that acknowledges that aProfessional Engineer is capable of performing nec-essary tasks independently in his/her respective coun-

5. Ibid.

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try. This is the only title that covers entire fields oftechnology in which an individual is qualified to per-form a task independently. In Japan, too, the title ofregistered Professional Engineer covers all technicalfields except A-1 registered architects and architec-tural engineers, who are excluded by historical rea-sons. Unlike Japan, most other countries have onlyone such title to cover all technological fields. So,Japan has to add the qualifications of registered ar-chitects and architectural engineers to that of a regis-tered Professional Engineer to cover the requirementsfor APEC engineers, with some complementary ex-planation of historical reasons. Consequently, in Ja-pan, an engineer, whose level is equivalent to the PE,needs to hold the title of registered Professional En-gineer or be an A-1 registered architect and architec-tural engineer.

The two-year requirement of experience in impor-tant engineering work can be included in the seven-year requirement of practical work experience aftercompletion of an engineering program. To meet thecondition of important engineering experience, Japanlists the following three experiences:

1) For a relatively small-scale project, the personhad the experience of implementing a major partof the planning, designing, management and co-ordination, etc.,

2) For a relatively large-scale project, the person hadthe experience of being in charge of a certainportion of the project, and coordinated with otherdivisions as well as provided guidance to the teamin implementing the project,

3) The person had experience implementing tasksthat were conducted in a complex situation, re-quired new ideas, or stretched across a numberof fields.Each country of the region may adopt its ownconditions, but the overall requirements must co-incide with the Japanese guidelines recognizedas appropriate at the APEC Engineer Coordina-tion Committee.

Continuous education is still an issue to be dis-cussed and will be addressed in detail the next timethe APEC Engineer Coordinating Committee meets.

IV Trend to Recognizing World-class Engineers

Engineers who are listed in the APEC Engineer Reg-ister will undoubtedly be fairly recognized as com-petent in countries other than their own. In some coun-tries, it is common that certain engineering titles canbe categorized as job-exclusive qualifications. In Ja-pan, having the title of registered architect and archi-tectural engineer is required in order to be able todesign and construct a building. In order for an APECEngineer to engage in work in the fields that require

job-exclusive qualifications outside of his/her owncountry, a treaty for mutual recognition is needed.

The body that grants the title to engineers has theauthority to conclude the treaty of mutual recogni-tion. In most cases, authority belongs to the centralgovernment, but in the United States and Canada, eachstate or provincial government has authority. In En-gland, the Engineers’ Association recognized the ne-cessity for the title before the government did. Dur-ing the era of absolute monarchy, the Engineers’ As-sociation of England attained authority from the royalcourt to directly grant an engineer the title under theRoyal Charter. For this reason, in England and Aus-tralia, the title of engineer is still Chartered Engineerand not Professional Engineer. Because in some coun-tries the authority for granting the title is not in thehands of the central government, it is not easy to settlethe treaty for regional mutual recognition approval.The APEC Engineer is in the same situation. The pre-liminary meeting, which agreed on the establishmentof APEC Engineer, did not have the authority to con-clude the treaty for mutual approval, but proposed arecommendation to be included in the treaty for mu-tual approval of engineers.6

APEC, especially in the Asian region, has a greatdiversity in languages, cultures, and technologicalstandards from country to country. For this reason,more detailed considerations are given to treaties inthis region than in other regions. Preexisting treatiesin other regions usually require some condition interms of language for a host country to work with aswell as the designated technological standards. Therecommendation for treaty of the APEC Engineer,however, does not require any particular vernacularlanguage competency when working with engineersof a host country. It presupposes that in the Asian re-gion, English is de facto the standard language, andthat competent engineers also possess enough profi-ciency skill in English. In fact, in Asian countries,only Malaysia and Indonesia, and Thailand and Laoscan understand each other's languages. Unless an in-dividual immigrates, it is not easy for him/her to mas-ter the language of the country engineers are going towork in. If the Register imposes engineers the re-quirements of speaking the language of the country/economy he/she is going to work in, it will probablybecome impossible for engineers to work beyond theirnational boundaries.

Because of the language barrier, it is impracticalto impose the same examination on an engineer fromanother country as that for domestic engineers. Evenif the test is supplementary, tests in the domestic lan-guage will be too difficult. It is, therefore, not recom-mended to undertake a supplementary test, but to sub-stitute it with an auxiliary job to be conducted for acertain period.

Likewise for technological standards, it is recom-

6. Ibid.


18

mended to consider sufficient for an engineer to gen-erally understand the basic principles concerning thetechnological standards and be capable of using theprinciples safely and efficiently without requiringdetailed knowledge. Although the conditions for theAPEC Engineer do not mention these requirements(language competence and technological level), thoseengineers who can meet the five conditions describedin Chapter III may be regarded to have fulfilled thesetechnological standards.

As the APEC's treaty for mutual approval gives dulyconsideration to the situation of the Asian region,where the languages, cultures and technological cri-teria are quite different from country to country, ithas characteristics of the global standard. In the "En-gineering Mobility Forum," a meeting which was heldthree times by the eight member countries of theWashington Accord, actual cases in North Americaand Europe has been used as references for discus-sion.

Japan, which attended the meeting as an observeruntil 1999, expressed its desire to become an officialmember of the Forum at the fourth meeting. Somecountries initially objected to this because Japan wasnot participating in the Washington Accord. Japaninsisted that its participation would be an importantfirst step, if the "Engineering Mobility Forum" aimedto establish a global standard by considering the WTO,and gave the following reasons. In the world thereare far more countries whose governments approvethe establishment of universities like Japan, and Asiancountries will have more of a voice as the develop-ment center of the world. This explanation gainedthe support of many members, and its official mem-bership was approved. Malaysia, which also attendedas an observer, also expressed its desire to become anofficial member, and was approved along with Japan.7

After the APEC Mutual Recognition Treaty wasintroduced with the participation of Japan and Ma-laysia, the discussion at the Forum over mutual rec-ognition has departed from the past framework underthe "Engineering Mobility Forum," and started to takea new shape based on the APEC framework. Morespecifically, discussion was held concerning the com-petency standard for approving engineers, the lan-guage conditions of host countries, and approvinggraduates who completed faculty programs authorizedby respective countries other than those faculties ap-proved by accreditation agencies of the WashingtonAccord.

V Engineer Training in Japan

As already mentioned, Japan has a national certifica-tion entitled "Professional Engineer." Since the origi-nal text of the Engineering Consultant Law is almost

the same as that of the Professional Engineering Lawsin many Anglo-Saxon oriented countries, it is assumedthat Japan's law has granted a qualification with theintention that this could be equal in character to thatof the Professional Engineer in those countries. How-ever, now this certificate is more likely to be regardednecessary for conducting jobs as a technological con-sultant. Recently many experienced engineers takethis examination to prepare for jobs after retirement,and therefore, only a few young engineers pass theexamination. Consequently, the "Professional Engi-neer" has become a title for those who have attaineda significant status through their long experience.

Engineers who work for companies, on the otherhand, don't find much interest in this qualification.Thecurrent Professional Engineer is, unlike physiciansand lawyers, a title-exclusive qualification that indi-cates competency in each field, but is not a job-ex-clusive qualification required for engaging in specificjobs. This is common in many countries in the world.Since the management can evaluate the competencyof each engineer, they do not feel the necessity ofhaving national certification. In many countries, ifengineers, after three to five years of practical workexperience, take the examination, though small innumber, excellent engineers will pass. In Japan, onthe other hand, it is rare for an engineer under 30 yearsold to pass the examination. The more excellent anengineer may be, the more naturally his/her reputa-tion in the company is firmly established around 35years old. In the Japanese business environment wherelifetime employment is still mainstream, there is nopractical need for a highly reputed engineer to attainthe title of Professional Engineer.

An important issue for Japan's future is how thecountry is going to evaluate and recognize the com-petency of young engineers in their 30s and 40s, theprime time of an engineer. Furthermore, how to trainengineers who can work beyond national boundariesand how to improve the environment where such anengineer's work are very important issues for techno-logical cooperation.

Almost every country recognizes that the minimumcondition for world-scale technical engineers is thatan engineer is approved in his/her own country as aProfessional Engineer who can work independently.Treaties for mutual recognition of engineers will bemade one after another. However, as more treaties aremade, Japan will not be able to meet internationalstandards, because it will be difficult for engineersequivalent or even exceeding in competence to Pro-fessional Engineers in other countries to attain thecertificate under Japan's current Professional Engi-neer system. As a result, young excellent Japaneseengineers will face difficult situations in which theywon't have opportunities to work overseas.

For this reason, amending the Professional Engi-

7. Engineering Mobility Forum, Memorandum of Understanding, Revised Version, 1999.

19


neer Law was examined and approved in April 2000by the National Diet. According to this amendment,those who want to become Professional Engineer maytake the first examination before or after graduatingfrom the university, and those who pass it, can takethe second examination after four years of work ex-perience. Those who have great potential as an engi-neer may pass the examination to become a Profes-sional Engineer after an appropriate amount of study.By passing these two examinations, one can attainthe title of "Professional Engineer," which is differ-ent from the title conventionally given to engineersof significant status with many years of experience.

This new "Professional Engineer" title is to be givento young engineers who possess potential. Becauseof the characteristic of this title, those engineers whoattain this title at a young age will become leaders insupporting Japan as a country that stands on its tech-nology. This system will also bring the managementof companies to regard these engineers as potentialfuture leaders, and make an effort to foster them tobecome excellent Professional Engineers for the com-pany. It is expected that this change will help engi-neers to achieve world-class quality and at the sametime will help them develop a stronger awareness asserving society, and not just the company. This trendshould be welcomed if Japan is aiming to stand on itstechnological creativity.

The tempo of technological progress has been in-creasing in recent years. Key technology doesn't takelong to become obsolete. On the other hand, the aca-demic theories and knowledge that are the basis oftechnology will unlikely become obsolete. Equally,the basics of engineering are easy to master when theyare young with flexible brains, but become difficultas they get older.

The first examination for Professional Engineersmainly covers the basic fields of mathematics, natu-ral sciences and engineering, and the second exami-nation mainly focuses on more specialized fields. Itis possible for undergraduate students before or aftergraduation to pass the first examination. Thus, ambi-tious and talented students may study harder to passthe examination while they are still in university.

These examinations will probably include questionsin the fields that have been conventionally neglectedsuch as the ethics of being a Professional Engineerand environmental ethics. These are important is-sues for engineers for the future. Education in suchfields will probably be incorporated in university edu-cation. Such change is favorable.

For universities, which are trying to survive thedecline in the birthrate, the pass rate of the first andsecond examinations, that is, the rate of becoming aProfessional Engineer can be the new indicator ofevaluation, in addition to the adjusted standard de-viation score for the entrance examination. This ex-amination pass rate may also become the indicatorfor evaluating the educational effectiveness of fac-

ulty members of universities, which may result in achange in faculty members' attitude toward educa-tion and a more enthusiastic effort in education. Wecan expect the raise of the bottom standard of Japan'stechnology.

VI Requirements for Engineers Who TakeCharge of Technological Cooperation

There is little doubt that Japanese engineers, as awhole, maintain an excellent standard. However,when it comes to technological cooperation with de-veloping countries, there is no direct link between theexcellence of Japanese engineers as a whole and theindividual competency required by an engineer fortechnical cooperation. Though the standard of eco-nomic development varies from country to country,there are many excellent engineers in Asian develop-ing countries. The author has first-hand experienceof this: through being dispatched twice to the gradu-ate school named as the Asian Institute of Technol-ogy in Bangkok, through friends in the EngineeringDepartments of the University of Singapore, NanyanTechnological University, the Bandon Institute ofTechnology, and the University of the Philippines atDilliman, and through foreign students from Asia withwhom the author became acquainted while studyingin the United States.

There are 400,000 registered Professional Engi-neers in the United States and 200,000 in England.The number of Japanese Professional Engineers is alittle less than 45,000. There are also about 280,000A-1 Registered Architects and Architectural Engineersin Japan. The technological level of the APEC Engi-neer in general is higher than the level of the newlyapproved PEs. The number of engineers registeredin the APEC Engineer Register in Southeast Asia willgrow from several thousands to tens of thousands inthe near future. There are also many more excellentengineers in India, China, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Technology, unlike science, requires experience.The number of experienced engineers is related tothe industrial situation of the respective country, andthere is no doubt that Japan has a great number ofexperienced engineers. Although the number of ex-perienced engineers in the manufacturing sectors indeveloping countries is increasing due to foreign di-rect investment from industrialized countries, thisnumber is still limited. The construction industry isdependent on the locality, and, except for world levellarge-scale construction projects, there are many ex-cellent engineers who can implement normal con-struction projects in developing countries. Donorcountries' engineers who take part in technologicalcooperation should keep this fact in mind.

When Japanese engineers are dispatched to devel-oping countries to assume roles in technological co-operation, domestically highly evaluated engineers


20

should be dispatched. Otherwise, the only merit thatJapanese engineers can demonstrate becomes onlytheir wealth of experience. Experience is, of course,more important than the mere knowledge stored insomeone's head, and this is the very reason that Ja-pan dispatches engineers with a wealth of experience.However, engineers in developing countries that re-ceive dispatched engineers may not always appreci-ate the importance of experience. This gap of under-standing is one of the reasons why some developingcountries remain as developing countries despite thefact that there are engineers who mastered high-leveltechnology. We cannot deny that it may not bring thebest results if local engineers who are excessivelydevoted to technological knowledge and Japaneseengineers who are only experience-rich to work to-gether. Unless high quality specialists are dispatched,the technological cooperation may foster anti-Japa-nese sentiment. When we think about dispatchingengineers who can cope with the need of the hostcountry, besides the degree of experience, we mustnot forget the importance of the world-class techno-logical competency.

AfterwardsAlthough the decline of the academic quality of uni-versity students has become a public concern, thereare students who are capable of acquiring the qualifi-

8. Fumio Nishino, "Introduction of Qualification Exam for the Innovation of English Education," Yomiuri-Shimbun, Viewpoint,August 9, 1987 (Morning edition).

cation of Professional Engineer under the new Pro-fessional Engineer Law. Furthermore, it is likely thatmany of them can be qualified for the APEC Engi-neer Register. There may be some engineers whosetechnological competency is not sufficiently high, butthe author is convinced that there are not many.

Engineers who lack language competency shouldnot be dispatched. When we think about trainingworld-scale professional engineers who can takecharge in technical cooperation, language competencyis as important as specialized technological compe-tency itself. The Ministry of Education is also exam-ining the innovation of language education, especiallythat of English. However, unless the entrance exami-nation system fundamentally changes, English edu-cation will not change very much. As long as facultymembers in each university make the examinations,an in-depth innovation will not take place. PracticalEnglish is not an academic subject, but is a means ofcommunication between people who do not share acommon language. To improve Japanese people'scompetency in English, the author suggests the re-moval of English as a subject in the entrance exami-nations. Instead, the applicants should take eitherTOEIC or TOEFL several times, and submit the bestscore to the university authority. The university canthen take the score, along with other scores in theentrance examination, into determining admittance.This could be the best approach.8

21

Role of Material Flow Analysis in Sustainable Development

ARTICLE


Hisashi KOBAYASHI Associate Professor, Faculty of Agriculture, Ibaraki University

The current production-consumption system, which is characterized by mass-production, mass-consump-tion and mass-disposal and is practiced mainly in industrialized countries, is no longer regarded as beingsustainable. It is also said that reducing dependency on external resources and converting the above systemto a sustainable recycling system, where each resource can be thoroughly utilized, is essential if soundsustainability is to be attained. Grasping the details of each sector and the appropriate inter-sectional re-source balance, fostering systematic/organic reciprocal coordination among sectors and holding compre-hensive discussions are all indispensable for bringing the recycling system under deliberation. Approach-ing the issue in this manner is important for the sustainable development of developing countries, whoselong-maintained social systems are now in transition and moving into an age of reformation.

The Dhofar region in Oman has been facing severe restrictions on the natural environment needed forlivestock farming. This paper discusses the effectiveness of material flow analysis in the context of sustain-able development in three steps, referring to livestock farming in the region.

First, the material flow in current livestock farming is estimated and it is found that the grass productionin the region is smaller in quantity than the estimated feed requirement and that the region's livestock isover grazing its environment.

Second, a quantitative alternative proposal (material flow model) is made, initially based on the currentflow of materials. The environmental degradation of the region, which has resulted from the consumptionof grass resources by the livestock farming sector, and its impact on the change in the quantity of resourcesavailable to other sectors is examined. The effectiveness of the systematization of the material flow isidentified in order to determine the development goal and the appropriate direction for the region to take.

Third, the deliberation of a sustainable development program, in which development, conservation andrecovery are integrated, is examined by setting quantitative preliminary conditions concerning the materialflow model. As a result, an annual increase in the water resources in the region at a rate of one million tonsa year can be projected. The compatibility of grazing cultivation in several thousand hectares throughirrigation and the securing of fodder biomass is increasing. This shows, therefore, that material flow analy-sis is effective in examining sustainable development. This analysis also shows, from a quantitative pointof view, that the material linkage between different resources, such as grazing pasture, water resources andforest land, is considered to be an effective means of bringing to residents' attention (who influence anddepend on the regional environment) the fact that they are not only a cause for the environmental degrada-tion but also its victims.

Introduction

Developed countries are basically sustained by a pro-duction system that is characterized by mass-con-sumption and mass-disposal. At the same time, thistype of system has been deeply implicated in the cre-ation of a number of environmental problems, includ-ing water pollution, underground water contamina-tion, global warming, the generation of acid rain andrain forest destruction. Very few people would dis-agree with the claim that this is no longer a sustain-

able system. The material flow in this kind of systemis highly consumptive and is characterized by the ex-cessive input of non-renewable resources such as pe-troleum. The material flow is also characterized bythe excessive discharge of materials (gas emission,liquid waste and solid waste) that place burdens onthe environment. If sustainability is to be attained,reducing the dependency on external non-renewableresources, utilizing regional resources and convert-ing this system to a sustainable recycling system arenecessary. Therefore, when considering the sustain-

* This article was first published in Japanese in Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu Vol 16 No.1 (April 2000).


22

able development of many developing nations that arein social transition, investigating regionally self-suffi-cient resource recycling systems is an important task.

This study was triggered by discussions on theanalysis/evaluation approach to large-scale grass fod-der cultivation in arid regions using undergroundwater irrigation, and livestock farming that is largelyreliant on grazing and uses this fodder as a supple-mentary resource.

Fortunately, with the kind assistance of Dhofar'sDirectorate General of Agriculture, Animal Wealthand Fisheries (DGAF) of the Ministry of Agricultureand Fisheries (MAF), field investigations were con-ducted into livestock farming and fodder productionin the Dhofar Region in March and July 1999. Thispaper, first gives a summary of the farming in Dhofar,the region's environment and the material flow in thearea. Second, this paper examines the significance ofmaterial flow analysis in an attempt to explore thepotential for sustainable regional development. Thisis studied based on the assumption that the mass-con-sumption and mass-disposal paradigm is unsustain-able and that sustainable development is only pos-sible if awareness of the issue is increased among lo-cal residents, who are responsible for the environmen-tal degradation.

I Geography of the Dhofar Region

The Dhofar Region, located in the south of Oman, issurrounded, with the exception of the south-easterncoast, by a vast expanse of desert (Figure 1). Theregion's center is Salalah, which is on a coastal plain.Behind Salalah looms mountains of 1000 meterscalled the Jabal, and behind the Jabal spreads theNejid, a desert area that connects to the Rub Al Khalidesert (Figure 2).

The Dhofar Region, along with the Al Batinahcoastal area in the north of the country, is the mostimportant traditional farming area in Oman. The re-gion has peculiar micro-climatic conditions charac-terized by rain and thick fogs caused by wet airbrought by monsoons from the Indian Ocean (Juneto September). Although annual precipitation in thearea is around 200 mm, unlike the surrounding aridlands, it is the only area with some forests. The avail-ability of water to supplement the water provided byprecipitation is essential to the viability of farmingand the existence of forests in the area. Fog gener-ated by the monsoons is considered to be the sourceof supplementary water.1 The forests play an ex-tremely important role in trapping the fog and hence,in sustaining the area's ecosystem which is supported

1. See, for example, COWIconsult, Final Main Report of Dhofal Khareef Studies Feasibility of Fog & Rain Water Collection and Guidelines for Pilot Project, PlanningCommittee for Development and Environment in the Dhofar Governorate, 1992, and Salem Ahmad Alesh, "Work Done on Fog and Fog Collection (MoistureCapture) in the Sultanate of Oman," Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Fog and Fog Collection, Vancouver, 417-420, 1998.

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by the fog.2

The influence of the monsoons totally changes be-yond the Jabal Mountains. In the Nejid behind theJabal, dry air, which has lost all its moisture in themountains, blows in and high temperatures and ex-treme dryness persist, even in the summer months.The climate changes dramatically in the mere 30kmbelt from the coast to the mountains and the Nejid.Following these natural environmental patterns (geo-graphical zone classification), different forms of ag-riculture are present in each belt as described below.

Coastal plain (Salalah & sea): Traditional farm-ing using shallow underground water (coconuts, ba-nanas, vegetables and grass fodder cultivation.) Re-cently, there has been an increase in grass fodder cul-tivation using large-scale underground water irrigation.

Mountain area (Jabal Dhofar): Traditional live-stock farming (mostly cows and goats) utilizing wildvegetation as fodder.

Arid area (Nejid): Traditional nomadic camelfarming. Recently, there has been an increase in large-scale grass fodder cultivation using deep undergroundwater for irrigation.

II Material Flow in Livestock Farming

1. Outline of Livestock FarmingIn forested mountain areas, people have kept livestocksince antiquity. The principle livestock are cattle,which are reared for meat and milk production.

Around 30% of farmers raise camels and 20% raisegoats. According to 1994 land use surveys of theDhofar Region, approximately 150, 000 cows, 50,000camels and 100,000 goats are kept in the Jabal Dhofaradjacent to Salalah.3

2. Estimation of Material FlowThere are four kinds of livestock fodder. The percent-age of each type of fodder is as follows (Figure 3):4

i) Wild grass resources in the mountain area andcoastal plain.... 77%.

ii) Concentrated and formula feed (partially pro-duced in Salalah)... 14%.

iii) Hay cultivated utilizing underground water irri-gation (partially supplied from outside the areaand by neighboring countries).... 7%.

iv) Dried fish procured from the regional marineenvironment.... 2%.

Annual demand for fodder in the entire area, interms of grass resources, is estimated to be approxi-mately 470,000 tons (Dried Matter: DM). The areathat can be used for grass production in the mountainarea covers approximately 1,500 square kilometers.Assuming the annual production of dried grass to beabout 2 tons (DM) per hectare per year,5 the total an-nual production in the entire area comes to some300,000 tons (DM). This amount is smaller than theestimated yearly volume used, which is approximately360,000 tons (DM). Considering the imbalance andloss at pasturage, it can be surmised that over-exploi-tation of vegetation by livestock farming is placing

2. See, for example, J. B. Sale, "The Ecology of the Mountain Region of Dhofar," J. Oman Study, Spec. Rep. No.2, 25-54, 1980, and Stephen Brend, "Fog AssistedWildlife Conservation - The Arabian Oryx Sanctuary in Oman," Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Fog and Fog Collection, Vancouver, 229-232, 1998.

3. Travers Morgan, Detailed Land Use Study in Jabal Dhofar, Phase 1 Survey Report, Appendix J and E, 1994." 4. Ibid. 5. Average of 38 plots measured by Range and Forestry Administration (DGAF) in September from 1995 to1998.


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great pressure on the region's environment.6

III Regional Material Flow

1. Livestock Farming within the Regional SystemAlthough it varies depending on the altitude and veg-etation type (as shown in Table 1), grass productivityon the grassland protected from livestock penetrationis 1.4 times to 2.1 times higher than that on land be-ing grazing. This means that the annual grass pro-duction potential of the area is 520,000 tons (DM).7

This potential, which is higher than the currently es-timated demand for livestock fodder, would beachieved if there were no grazing.

However, it is extremely unlikely that all grazingland will be protected because livestock rearing isclosely connected to the traditional production meth-ods and lifestyle of the area. Livestock is popularlyregarded as property, and grazing itself is recognizedas an act of ownership.

Generally, many forms of agriculture and forestryare practiced, all having certain "linkages" with re-gionally available resources. Sustainable regionaldevelopment probably means that these linkages aresystematized to form regionally (or inter-regionally)self-reliant systems by transforming the linkages intomulti-layered organic entities. If this is correct, nomatter what form it may take, grass fodder cultiva-

tion cannot be anything but a means of generating asupplementary resource to naturally occurring fod-der. If one carries this logic to its extreme, it can beconcluded that expanding profit-oriented grass fod-der cultivation will degrade the region's livestockfarming activities, which have been sustained for along time. This kind of expansion would divorce live-stock farming activities from the regional environ-ment and accelerate the over-exploitation of vegeta-tion in order to sustain and expand farming.

2. Combinations of Material FlowThis section examines approaches for studying the

6. Although the value of camels as livestock is declining, there has been no decrease in the number of camels or the amount of grass consumption. This indicates thatenvironmental load is also linked to social and cultural issues.

7. Estimation is made referring to Travers Morgan, Detailed Land Use Study in Jabal Dhofar, Phase 1 Survey Report, Appendix E, 1994."

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livestock sector in the region. Livestock farming de-pends on regional water, land and vegetation and ani-mal resources. Therefore, it should be an activity thatis integrated in an appropriate resource utilizationsystem (the material flow system). In order to ensurethat livestock farming activities are operating withinthe system, it is necessary to make quantitative ob-servations wherever possible. These include accurateestimations of the region's grass resource productionpotential, the calculation of an appropriate scale offarming (based on the number of livestock) whichmeets the local environmental potential, and explo-ration of the most appropriate regional system basedon the available data.

For example, livestock farming activities in JabalDhofar can be quantified, according to the differentsources of fodder supply as indicated in Figure 3, asa combination of "multi-layered material flow".

i) Basic layer: Material flow of livestock farmingmaintained solely by the natural environment ofthe Jabal (material flow related to precipitation,biomass production potential, wild grass produc-tion, grass fodder capacity, carrying capacity, lim-ited heads of livestock, animal waste).

ii) First layer: Material flow in the Dhofar Region(material flow related to shifting livestock farm-ing in the coastal plain, traditional supplemen-tary resources such as dried fish resources).

iii) Second layer: Material flow of grass fodder cul-tivation system in the Dhofar Region (materialflow related to water resources, arable land, nu-trient input, agricultural production, hay produc-tion, agricultural waste and by-products).

iv) Third layer: Material flow of purchased feed

(material flow related to feed production and stor-age capacity within the region and country, im-port volume, input and output in feed produc-tion and transportation processes such as resourceconsumption and emissions to the environment).

3. Actual Conditions of Material LinkagesThe regional system is composed and sustained notonly by the material flow within certain agriculturalactivities such as cattle farming, but also by material'linkages' between different activities. For example,different agricultural systems found in the Dhofarregion that appear to have distinct characteristics orfunctions depending on their respective geographicalconditions are not independent of each other. Rather,as shown in Figure 4, complimentary and outwardmaterial linkages, and each activity that forms part ofthe larger regional agricultural system links them toeach other.

Due to the increasing necessity for overcoming thelimit of productivity capacity and the demand forhigher productivity, the material linkages within theregional agricultural system, as shown in Figure 4,are being expanded to an extent that exceeds the geo-graphical zones of the traditional agricultural systems.The past 20 plus years have seen a remarkable in-crease in the consumption of underground water re-sources, which have a very long time scale in termsof material circulation (regeneration), exhaustibleresources such as petroleum (fossil fuels), and indus-trially produced chemical fertilizers and condensedfeed. As a result the agricultural systems of the re-gion have been becoming more and more dependenton resources from outside the region. The expansion


26

and modernization of agricultural production mayincrease productivity, but at the same time, it seemsto accelerate environmental degradation and destroythe sustainable form of traditional agricultural prac-tices. This is evident from the problems arising in theagricultural systems, and the difficulty in tacklingthese problems in each geographical zone, as dis-cussed below.* Coastal plain (Salalah & sea):Environmental problem: decreasing groundwater leveland increasing salinity of ground water, resulting fromincreases in groundwater pumping for large-scaleagriculture.Measures taken: monitoring groundwater, planningthe translocation of existing pasture cultivation to theNejid area.* Mountain area (Jobal Dhofar):Environmental problem: decreasing forest cover andnatural pasturage and invasion by ecologically de-structive plants, caused by overgrazing and over-log-ging for firewood production.Measures taken: establishment of natural vegetationreserves for seed production, elimination of destruc-tive plants, restriction on the number of cattle andlivestock.* Arid area (Nejid):Environmental problem: decreasing groundwaterlevel, resulting from excessive pumping, increasingsalinity in grazing land soil as a result of irrigationpractices.Measures taken: restriction on creation of new farm-land and wells, establishment of pilot farms, researchon groundwater.

IV Regional Material Flow Planning (RMFP)

In order to comprehensively examine the overall en-vironmental degradation caused by over-consumption/ over-use of vegetation in livestock farming in thearea, and to consider the most appropriate means oflivestock farming in the region, quantification of thematerial flow within the agricultural system is con-sidered to be very effective. This paper refers to thisquantification approach as 'Regional Material FlowPlanning' (RMFP).

1. Material Flow Scenarios as an AlternativeFor RMFP, it is, first, necessary to prepare alternativescenarios that reflect possible systems of materialflow. Using livestock material flow (see Figure 3) asan example this section examines material flow sce-narios based on the following assumptions:

i) The scale of livestock farming remains at presentlevels, and the gross fodder requirement is500,000 tons (DM) / year.

ii) The current amount of grass resource consump-tion is 385,000 tons (DM)/year (77% of the grossfodder requirement), of which 300,000 tons

(DM)/year (2tons / ha × 1500 km2) occurs in themountain region and 85,000 t (DM)/year is fromshifting pasturage to the coastal plains. The re-source share percentage is 60% in the mountainregion and 17% for shifting pasturage.

iii) The current resource level in the mountain re-gion, 300,000 tons (DM) / year, is the maximumproduction level given the current grazing envi-ronment.

iv) The plant (grass) resource production level inprotected grasslands is 1.73 times that of the cur-rently grazed environment (i.e. 3.5 tons (DM) /ha / year).

v) 2% of necessary resources comes from the coastalarea in the form of dried fish, and 17% is alsosupplied on a regular basis by shifting pasturageto the coastal plains.

vi) Grass fodder cultivation and other agriculturalproduction are on trade-off terms. That is, in-creases in pasturage production leads to de-creases in the production of other agriculturalproducts, and vice versa.

Material flow scenarios of a to f for livestock farm-ing are given in Figure 5, assuming typical condi-tions. A summary of alternative scenarios to the cur-rent material flow are outlined as follows.

Scenario a : Replace cultivated hay of grass fodderwith imports of non-local resources, thus increasingsupply from outside the region.

Scenario b : Replace imported hay with grass fod-der cultivation, thus increasing production and sup-ply within the region.

Scenario c : Partially restrict grazing in the moun-tain area and set aside protected grassland (47% ofthe current pasture land in the mountain area), andhave the increased production of grass resources fromthe protected grassland complement the imported hayresources and cultivated grass fodder.

Scenario d : While maintaining the current level ofimporting non-local resources, increase grass produc-tion in protected grassland (16% of the current graz-ing land) by partially restricting grazing.

Scenario e : A total ban on grazing activity, afford-ing protected status to all currently grazed land inorder to replace imported non-local resources andgrass fodder cultivation with increased grass produc-tion in the long term.

Scenario f : Introduce moderate cuts in the level ofimporting non-local resources and grass fodder culti-vation, while augmenting the loss by increased grassproduction resulting from a partial grazing ban andnurturing protected grassland.

2. Material Flow Analysis for RegionalDevelopment

1) Material linkages between different agriculturalsectors

Based on the alternative material flow scenarios in

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8. In this region, degradation of vegetation, such as grassland and forests, contributes to decreasing the amount of fog trapped. It is feared that this in turn has a negativeeffect on underground water recharging capability and further accelerates vegetation degradation

9. Water equivalent to a few hundred milimeters rainfall is estimated by referring to COWIconsult, Final Main Report of Dhofal Khareef Studies Feasibility of Fog &Rain Water Collection and Guidelines for Pilot Project, Planning Committee for Development and Environment in the Dhofar Governorate, 1992. Our preliminaryobservation results of 5-10mm/day of water drops under forest also indicate that 400mm-750mm of water could be provided during the monsoon season

10. The volume is decided under the following conditions by referring to the cultivation data of the Nejid Agricultural Research Station; irrigation water of 10mm/day,irrigation period of 40 days and irrigation loss of 40%.

Figure 5 and the assumed conditions, let us considerone example of changes in the current level of re-gional resource production. Table 2 illustrates thatprograms such as grass fodder cultivation in the live-stock sector lead to changes in the resource level ofother sectors.

Making adjustments between the whole sector andindividual sectors, such as livestock farming, becomesan important task in regional development. Normallymaximization of benefit / output (basically economicprofit / output) is the basis for these adjustments. Al-though in the RMFP paradigm, adjustments betweenthe entire system and individual sectors is also nec-essary, the basic direction of adjustments in the RMFPcase is decided based on balancing resource supplyand demand between the different sectors, and maxi-mizing and making optimum use of material circula-tion. For this purpose, it is necessary to grasp mate-rial flow within the region, and to clarify the quanti-tative and functional relationships between the dif-ferent elements involved in material circulation. It isalso necessary to identify the direction which the re-gional system should take in the course of develop-ment, and to synthesize material 'linkages' betweenthe different elements.

For example, as shown in setting the conditionsfor the material flow scenarios, over-utilization ofbiomass resulting from over-grazing leads to a de-crease in the fundamental resources in the region andits periphery, by way of forest destruction, grass re-source depletion and soil erosion.8 Also, overuse ofgroundwater leads to decreasing groundwater levelsand salinization, which in turn results in decreases inthe amount of water available for agricultural pro-duction and household use.

2) Quantitative analysis of material flow forsustainable regional development

This section considers the potential and meaningof material flow analysis in regional development. Forthis purpose, consideration is given to a model simi-lar to scenario f illustrated in Figure 5 which assumesthat inputs from non-local resource imports, grassproduction and the sea stay constant while the acre-age of protected grassland is gradually increased, asshown in Figure 6. The conversion of grazing land toprotected grassland yields surplus resources whichare 0.73 times (0.73x) that of the pre-conversion re-source level (x). This means that the necessary amountof grass resources can be supplied from 58% of theconverted protected grassland, and the remaining 42%of the acreage can be utilized as an intensive environ-mental conservation area.

Using the sample model in Figure 6, changes inthe material flow to livestock farming -water resources-grass fodder cultivation can be examined under thefollowing conditions:a) Land which produces surplus grass resources is tobe used for afforestation. The acreage to be devotedto afforestation could be determined by calculatingthe sizes of the grazing land and protected grasslandwhich would produce the same amount of grass re-sources as in scenario f in Figure 5, and from deduc-ing the acreage of grazing land and protected grass-land, the acreage of the entire area (1500 km2) couldbe decided.b) The increase in fog capture (i.e. increase in waterresource production) resulting from the forested ar-eas is 500 mm / year.9

c) The amount of water needed irrigate one cycle ofgrass production is 550 mm / cycle.10

29


d) The production of dried grass per-ha by irrigationis 3.5t / ha / cycle.11

When the decrease in grass resources from graz-ing land is 'G', the changes in resource levels will be,as shown in Table 3. Table 4 shows the calculation ofresource level changes when 'G' is arbitrarily changed.

The calculations in Table 4 show that, by convert-ing some portion of grazing land to protected landand afforestation, water resources can be increasedto one million ton/year maintaining the current levelof livestock farming, and that, by introducing severalthousand ha of irrigated land, there is the possibilityof increasing grass production. At the same time, Table4 also makes it clear that there are some material link-ages between different resources, i.e. production of6,680 tons of dried grass requires about 10,000 tonsof water, an amount which is equal to the water re-source supply from 2,100 ha of woodland. Further-more, as a concrete example in regional development,for every 3,000 tons of grass production (approxi-mately 850 ha is required for this) approximately 950ha of woodland and approximately 1,300 ha of pro-tected grassland need to be secured.

3) The meaning of the material flow approach inregional development

The result of the above analysis shows that an in-crease in resource consumption in certain sectors doesnot necessarily lead to a decrease in the sustainabilityof the entire region. In considering sustainable re-source utilization, it is absolutely necessary to ana-lyze the balance between the total generation and uti-lization of all resources available.

All production and other life-related activities are

dependent on resource utilization, whether these arenatural resources such as petroleum, or bio-mass re-sources such as agricultural products and timber. Ifthe quantity and time scale for resource utilizationmatch the quantity and time-scale for resource gen-eration, the consumption and provision of resourceswill be well balanced and sustainable resource utili-zation will become possible. On the other hand, ifthe scale of resource consumption is larger than thatof resource generation and the time scale of consump-tion is shorter than that of resource generation, a bal-ance between consumption and generation cannot beattained and so this utilization of resources will besustainable. The balance of utilization and resourcegeneration does not normally apply to some naturalresources such as fossil fuels and minerals, and un-derground water resources whose regeneration re-quires a very long time. Such resources are called non-renewable resources.

In order to achieve sustainable regional develop-ment, the quantitative balance of resources availablein the region must be carefully considered. Materialflow analysis in the region can quantify regional re-source utilization and regional in-flow and out-flowof resources as well as the creation of environmentalload. Therefore it is a highly important tool in exam-ining the balance between the generation and utiliza-tion of resources as a regional system. In addition,material flow analysis can be considered an effectivetool for examining the most desirable operation ofeach production sector within the regional system aswell as the appropriate relationships between differ-ent sectors. Moreover, material flow analysis can beused to quantitatively show the utilization and pro-

11. The amount is estimated referring to the cultivation data of the Nejid Agricultural Research Station.


30

duction levels of various resources and materials tolocal people, who depend on the regional environ-ment, but who are, at the same time, creating certainpressures on it in the process of their resource con-sumption. In this way people can be made to realize,in a more concrete manner, that they affect and even-tually are most affected by their own consumptionactivities, and thus they are the ones who should actwith great responsibility.

Conclusion

Traditional agricultural activity can be sustainable butit has some restrictions and limitations both in termsof environmental conditions and productivity. Mod-ern agricultural activity, on the other hand, may beable to achieve a greater scale of production and pro-

ductivity, but faces problems in terms of itssustainability. How then should the region pursue bothor either type of agriculture? This is a difficult ques-tion. The solution to this question is most commonlyarrived at in a way that seeks to maximize economicprofitability. Another solution that is also becomingcommon is maximization of economic profitability,which is calculated with environmental degradationand negative environmental discharge treated as eco-nomic losses. However, from the viewpoint of regionalenvironmental sustainability, it is necessary to seek asolution which also pays attention to the pace andquantitative balance between the generation and uti-lization of resources such as water, land, and variousspecies flora and fauna.

To meet this balance, first, it is necessary to havequantitative understanding of the regional environ-ment so as to properly analyze the potential degrada-

31


tion and depletion resource levels in the region. Sec-ond, it is essential that information obtained from thequantitative study into the reality and tasks of the rel-evant production sectors be exchanged between thedifferent parties. Third, information regarding theobstacles and achievements in the process of regionaldevelopment, along with the concrete evaluation andanalysis, should be made available to the public in acomprehensible manner. Finally, following thesesteps, it is important to foster the mutual understand-ing and a sense of cooperation between the develop-ers and local residents.

Material flow analysis in regional developmentseems to be an appropriate approach to achieving thesegoals. When planning for sustainable development inarid or semi-arid areas that are characterized by strongenvironmental restrictions, it is crucial to have quan-titative understanding of the resource / material flowin the target area, and then to work out multifacetedprograms that consider the pace and quantitative bal-ance between resource generation and utilization. Forthis purpose, it is necessary to conduct quantitativeanalyses and assessment of the resource and materialbalance, that is, land area, water resources, produc-tion and consumption activities, and vegetation stocks,and then prepare a development plan and methodsbased on the findings.

This discussion has been confined to the prelimi-nary examination of a few particular production sec-tors. To apply this to more concrete development plan-ning, it is necessary to consider many other practicalfactors; for example, whether restrictions on pastur-age and the creation of forests and/or protected grass-land is feasible as part of the program from the viewpoint of the availability of labor, the social systemsand customs, and the existing land use systems, orwhether partial restrictions on pasturage can be made

without alternating or disturbing the local people'sculture and way of life. More applied research arerequested in order to systematize material flow analy-sis as part of regional development planning.

AcknowledgementsMr Sayyid Hilal bin Mussallam bin Al-Busaidi,DGAF Director General, Mr. Ghanam Mussallam Al-Mahari, DGAF Vice Director, and Mr. Fail MohamedSalim Al-Jahfali, Director of the Nejid pilot farm, wereunsparing in their kind assistance in helping me toconduct field research. Mr. El Haq Bakhit Ahmed andMr. Salah A.H. Agieb of the DGAF Grassland & For-est Bureau, and Mr. Taichi Iiyama and Mr. TsuneoIwao, both JICA experts, provided me with referencematerials, wonderful support for my field research,as well as precious pieces of advice. I would like toexpress my deepest gratitude to all of them.

ReferencesMin. of Water Resources,Oman: Salt Water Intru-

sion beneath the Salalah Coastal Plain, 1993.Morris, Miranda: Animal Wealth Study, Director-

ate of Animal Wealth, Technical Secretariat ofMAF, 1987.

Morris, Miranda: Pastoral Management Study,Technical Secretariat of MAF, 1986.

Schemenauer, R. S., P. Cereceda, and N. Carvajal:"Measurements of Fog Water Deposition andTheir Relationship to Terrain Feature," J. of Cli-mate and Applied Meteorology, Vol.26, 1285-1291, 1987.

WS Atkins International: Sub-regional Land UsePlans for Southern Region, Final Report, Tech-nical Secretariat of MAF, 1990.

33

Introduction of the User Fee System at the National Maternaland Child Health Center in Cambodia

CASE STUDY


Takako YAMADATechnical Official, Expert Service Division, Bureau of International Cooperation,International Medical Center of Japan, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Hidechika AKASHITechnical Official, Expert Service Division, Bureau of International Cooperation,International Medical Center of Japan, Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare

Naoko FUJITAFormer JICA Expert. TES Co., Ltd.

Takao SUGIMOTOFormer JICA Expert, Financial Director, Kyushu Industrial Health Association

The factors necessary to establish a user free system were studied according to information from the Na-tional Maternal and Child Health Center (NMCHC) in Cambodia. The following information is necessarybefore introducing the user free system: the patients' health-seeking behavior and ability to pay, the healthstaff's job description and motivation, and the estimated cost of standardized treatments for diseases. Also,patients should be well informed about the user fee system and an exemption system for poor peopleshould be introduced before implementation. A registration system for patients and clear financial man-agement should be established for the collection of user fees from patients.

The most important factor in practicing the user fee system is that patients are satisfied with the goodquality of service. Health staff in particular should realize that their attitude towards the patients is animportant factor in improving the quality of care. It is also necessary for administrative staff to improve theability of managing manpower, material, money and information to maximize the use of income receivedfrom patients who can afford to pay, to continue free treatment for poor patients and to motivate staff.

The user fee system is a method to use limited resources effectively and to ensure health care for thelargest number of people. However, it may happen that poor people will have difficulty getting healthservices. It is important that the Ministry of Health puts an obligation on government hospitals to acceptpoor patients to some degree and monitors their performance.

Introduction

Everyone recognizes that health care and educationare basically necessary for every person, and theyshould be provided equally to each person. In real-ity, however, in many developing countries, properhealth care is not necessarily provided to everyonewho needs it. There are various reasons, such as eco-nomic, social, and cultural factors, why health caredoes not reach people who need it, but the issue ofwho pays for medical expenses is especially impor-tant, whether referring to a developing or an advancedcountry. For health care, it is not possible to continu-ally depend on only charity and donations from for-

* This article was first published in Japanese in Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu Vol.15 No.2 (October 1999).1. Yasuki Kobayashi, "Financial Issues in Health Care in Developing Countries," International Health Care, 8(1): 1-8, 1994.2. T. Ensor and L. Savelyeva, "Informal Payments for Health Care in the Former Soviet Union: Some Evidence from Kazafstan," Health Policy and Planning, 13(1): 41-

49, 1998.

eign countries, and if a country is not mature enoughto introduce a national-scale medical insurance sys-tem, collection of medical fees from users can be con-sidered a realistic method.1

Public hospitals in many developing countries donot charge medical fees, in principle, but adequatehealth care is not possible with the limited budget pro-vided by the respective government health ministries,and patients have to pay for drugs, and for consum-able goods needed to have surgery, in many cases.And, it is not rare for medical staff who work at pub-lic hospitals to receive money from patients for treat-ment, unofficially, in developing countries, where sala-ries are low.2 However, even when patients themselves


34

pay treatment fees as mentioned, it does not neces-sarily mean that the quality of health care they re-ceive is guaranteed.

In Cambodia, the Ministry of Health decided tointroduce a user fee system, starting in February 1996,in which treatment fees are collected from patientswho can afford to pay, based on a prerequisite of pro-tecting the poor, in order to improve the quality ofpublic medical institutions. This report will explainthe two-year preparation process prior to the time userfees began to be charged, in April 1997, followingthe transfer to a new center, remodeled through grantaid from Japan, in the Japan International Coopera-tion Agency's (JICA) Maternal and Child HealthProject toward the National Maternal and Child HealthCenter (NMCHC), which started in April 1995, andimportant factors will be considered.

I Background regarding Medical Fees beforeIntroduction of the User Fee System

1. Health-Seeking Behavior at the Time ofSickness (Figure 1)

According to a survey conducted by an NGO regard-ing village people's health-seeking behavior in ruralareas in Cambodia, about half of the people try tak-ing medication on their own, using a drug/medicineat home or by purchasing one at a pharmacy in theirvillage, when they become sick.3 The next most com-mon behavior is to receive treatment by having acaregiver come to the home. Treatment by privatemedical staff, nurses at health centers, and traditionalhealers, accounts for about 40% of all health-seekingbehavior. Only less than 10% of people go to a countyhospital as the first choice. The survey results showthat people try to avoid leaving home when they get

sick, as much as possible. The conceivable reasonsare negative economic effects that occur by leavinghome, such as transportation fees, distrust towardcounty hospitals, and the characteristics of Cambo-dian people, who are passive about exchanges out-side of their own territory, as background.

2. Payment for Medical CareAccording to a 1995 report by the Cambodian Minis-try of Health, the annual health budget per nationalcitizen was two dollars. The medical fees a nationalcitizen spent in a year, revealed by a household sur-vey, totaled 18 dollars.4 This means that almost 10%of the per capita national GNP, which is 200 dollars,was spent as medical fees in Cambodia. Most of suchmoney flows from residents into the private sector, asprivate income for pharmacies in villages, traditionalhealers, and health center nurses who visit homes toprovide treatment, as mentioned above. In Cambo-dia, where legal health-related guarantee systems,such as a pharmaceutical affairs law and a medicalpractitioners law, are not established, health care pro-vided by such private health personnel is not neces-sarily appropriate, and sometimes it can be harmful.It is estimated that 200 million dollars, which is about10 times the budget of the Cambodian Ministry ofHealth, is spent for such health care.

Other payments to private health personnel are inthe form of remuneration money for childbirth assis-tants in rural areas. In a survey, 92% of 1,184 womenrespondents said they had delivered a baby at home,and 67% of the childbirth assistants were traditionalbirth attendants (TBA). The money paid as remu-neration was less than 4 dollars in 80% of cases, andonly 2% paid nothing to the childbirth assistant (Fig-ure 2). In the background lie customs of Cambodi-ans, who always compensate for a favor received.

3. MSF Holland-Belgium, Empty Hospitals, Thriving Business, 1992.4. Cambodian Ministry of Health, Planning & Statistics Unit, Public Investment Program 1996-98 Overview Statement, 1995.

35


3. Unofficial Payment System at NMCHCNMCHC is a government organization, directly con-trolled by the Cambodian Ministry of Health, thatdecides, implements, and evaluates policies regard-ing maternal and child health. NMCHC also has anaffiliated obstetrics and gynecology hospital, andsome facilities for care of sick neonates. The obstet-rics and gynecology hospital, with 150 beds, handlescheckups and deliveries for pregnant women who livein and around Phnom Penh, and it also functions asthe tertiary medical institution for obstetric emergen-cies, including emergency Caesarean sections, han-dling over about 3,500 deliveries each year. Simi-larly to other government medical institutions, treat-ment is supposed to be free of charge, but the salaryof the national public service personnel in Cambodiais only 15 to 20 dollars per month, so the Govern-ment tacitly approves of staff directly receiving moneyfrom patients, at present. It is difficult to completelygrasp the actual state, due to its closed nature, but aninterview survey of 50 patients who were hospital-ized at NMCHC for delivery revealed the following.

Out of the 50 persons, only 5 (10%) paid no money;that is, 90% did pay. The monetary amount rangedfrom 1 dollar to 150 dollars (Figure 3), but it wasestimated, from a tally of the results of responses,that the common amounts paid at NMCHC were 20to 50 dollars for a normal delivery (including an epi-siotomy), and 80 to 120 dollars for a Caesarean sec-

tion. It is difficult to judge if such unofficial pay-ment is based on patients' voluntary action, demandsfrom staff, or tacit semi-compulsory forces despitethe absence of direct demand by staff. Several pa-tients sold a cow or borrowed money to pay for a Cae-sarean section, and one woman, who had no relativesto help her, said she saved up money, though only alittle, by even selling her own clothes. As such, itwas indicated that some patients raised money anyway they could to pay the necessary amount, whichexceeded their ability to pay. It was estimated, fromthis interview survey, that many patients could inde-pendently pay 20 dollars or less on their own.

It was also found that cash received from thesepatients was distributed among on-duty staff by achief. In the case of a Caesarean section, the obste-trician and the anesthetist who handled the surgery,and even staff who cleaned the operation room, re-ceived cash, in established ratios; and for a normaldelivery, every staff person related to it, centered onseven to eight on-duty midwives, even includingcleaning staff, received cash. The total monetaryamount staff directly received from patients atNMCHC is estimated to reach 200,000 dollars, basedon a common amount per case, the number of deliv-eries per month, and the number of surgeries permonth. This amount is equivalent to the annual bud-get of the Ministry of Health allotted to NMCHC.Also, the amount distributed to staff per month was


36

calculated, hypothetically, to be 100 to 150 dollarsfor a doctor, and 60 to 100 dollars for a midwife.

4. The Reason for Choosing Delivery at NMCHCAs NMCHC is a hospital specializing in obstetricsand gynecology, 70% of its patients go there for child-birth. Twelve percent of the patients hospitalized fordelivery are referral patients who were advised by amidwife or a TBA to enter the hospital due to a com-plication of pregnancy or delivery, but the remaining88% are patients who voluntarily chose delivery atNMCHC and sought hospitalization there. Out of thevoluntary patients, 50% went to the hospital basedon their own judgment, and 36% went based on judg-ment by their family (Figure 4). The reason was theexpectation of medical care by expert staff, such as"help for difficulty during delivery," and "handling atthe time of some trouble." It was thus indicated that,if NMCHC can obtain trust of patients as an obstet-rics and gynecology hospital, patients will voluntar-ily choose medical care from it, and for that they arealready prepared to pay some money.

II. Preparation for Introductionof the User Fee System

The Cambodian Ministry of Health established apolicy regarding introduction of a user fee system,but it did not specify indications on standards for set-ting fees. In this system, each institution sets its ownfees, and submits them to the Ministry of Health forexamination and approval. As such, NMCHC pro-ceeded with preparation to introduce a user fee sys-tem through the following procedure.

1) Establishment of the Treatment Fee Committee

In April 1996, one year before the start of the userfee system, the Treatment Fee Committee was estab-lished, with the vice-director of NMCHC as its chair-man. The Committee consisted of eight members:

the chairman, the hospital chief secretary, and the re-spective chiefs of the hospital accounting department,ward division, outpatient division, nursing division,pharmacy, and laboratory. From the JICA projectteam, the team leader and a short-term expert in hos-pital management participated, as advisers. Regularmeetings were held every two weeks, and in addi-tion, meetings were conducted as needed, to pursuesystem creation, which will be mentioned later.

2) Establishment of the Controller Committee

The Controller Committee was established, as aninternal organization that handles patients who requestexemption from payment and monitors staff's im-proper demanding of money. This Committee con-sists of six persons: two doctors appointed by theTreatment Fee Committee, two staff members fromthe statistics department (later the medical adminis-tration department), and one person from each of theadministration department and the accounting depart-ment. Those granted exemption from payment arepoor people, staff who work at NMCHC, and theirfamily members (spouses and children), and the defi-nition of a poor person is based on self-reporting. TheController Committee members ask about occupationsand incomes of patients and their husbands, means oftransportation to the hospital, etc., and they also judgepatients' economic levels by observing physical ap-pearance, such as clothing.

Further, as publicity activities, the Controller Com-mittee produced posters, using illustrations, that in-dicated patients should not directly give money to thestaff, and these were posted at various places in thehospital.

3) Calculation of Actual Costs

NMCHC is an obstetrics and gynecology hospital,and as such it has a limited range of patient problemsand conditions. In view of this, medical care for eachtype of condition was standardized, as much as pos-sible, and then the actual costs for drugs, pharmaceu-

37


tical supplies, consumable goods, etc., needed forrespective care were calculated, in a trial, and werefound to be about 10 dollars for a normal delivery(hospitalization for three days), and about 80 dollarsfor a Caesarean section.

4) Preparation of a Fee Table

To prevent calculation from becoming complicatedfor the staff of the accounting department, who actu-ally collect fees, all of the fees at NMCHC were setas package fees according to conditions. The mainfees were 20 dollars for a three-day hospitalizationfor a normal delivery, 40 dollars for a 5-day hospital-ization for an abnormal delivery (including an epi-siotomy), and 120 dollars for a Caesarean section,with these amounts representing twice the actual costs,as the upper limit. Fees were set at twice the actualcosts to secure income, so that income from patientswho could pay would supplement the medical feesfor exempt patients, assuming 30% of the patients whovisited the hospital could not afford to pay. In addi-tion, at the new center remodeled through grant aid,individual rooms (air-conditioned, with a toilet) andtwo-person rooms were established, and additionalroom-charge fees were decided to be collected. Asto outpatient treatment, the fees were set to be loweraccording to the number of visits to the hospital, andto be free beginning at the fifth visit, in order to pro-mote the receiving of regular checkups by pregnantwomen. Test fees were also set based on actual costsof reagents, etc. In September 1996, application wasmade to the Ministry of Health regarding a table ofthese fees, and approval was obtained.

5) Supply of Information to Patients

The fee table was written on a large white sign-board in each department so that every patient whovisited the hospital could confirm information on feesthey were required to pay. Furthermore, at the entranceof the center, a signboard explaining the introductionof the user fee system, including about exemption ofpayment for poor people, was posted on the wall, andenlightenment of patients was conducted, advisingthem to report to the Controller Committee if theyreceived any demand for improper payment. Also,an opinion box was installed in the center of the out-patient waiting area, to enable patients to freely writecomments and opinions.

6) Reform of the Patient Registration System

Private treatment by staff, which had been con-ducted almost openly, was prohibited. In order toconfirm that the number of patients and the contentof treatment correspond to the monetary amount ofhospital income, accurate registration of patients isneeded. Therefore, the new center changed the sys-tem from conventional recording on notes accordingto departments, to collective registration at a depart-ment called a "communications counter," which cor-

responds to Japan's medical administration depart-ment. Here, patients are assigned to one of the fol-lowing classifications: a checkup for pregnantwomen, a gynecological outpatient visit, vaccination,examination at the laboratory department, and proce-dures for hospitalization; and the staff of the statis-tics department filled out registration ledgers, pre-pared medical charts, and gave identification cards topatients. Thus, the numbers of patients, which hadbeen dispersed among different treatment depart-ments, could be tallied, here at the "communicationscounter," every day. In addition, a system was intro-duced in which outpatient medical charts were pre-pared to be kept as records, to enable confirming ifthe content of patients' treatment conformed to themonetary amount of charges.

7) Introduction of Guide Nurses

To facilitate service to patients, reception, and pa-tient flow to the outpatient department, midwives,called guide nurses, are posted, in rotation, everymorning at the entrance of the hospital during gen-eral outpatient hours. The guide nurses hand patientsa number card color-coded according to the contentof the treatment to be received. They serve as guideswho give instruction to patients to wait in front oftreatment departments according to the colors of thecards, after they are received at respective servicedesks.

8) Collection of Treatment Fees by the AccountingDepartment, and Introduction of Its ManagementSystem

In order to prevent non-payment after treatment, asystem was established in which, after registration atthe "communications counter," patients have to payfees, according to the content of treatment, at the ac-counting department, located at the same place, afterwhich they are sent to the respective treatment de-partments. When the content of treatment has to bedetermined after seeing a doctor, the patient has to goback and pay at the accounting department after re-ceiving an explanation from a doctor, and then thepatient returns to the treatment room again. The ac-counting slips are three-sheet duplicates; one sheet isto be kept at the accounting department, one is keptat the department concerned, and one is to be kept bythe patient. Patients exempt from payment have astamp of "Non-pay" affixed on the accounting slip,after applying to the Controller Committee, and thenthey receive treatment.

9) Simulation from Patient Reception andAccounting to Outpatient Treatment

At the end of March 1997, a simulation of actualpatient flow and how to handle it was conducted, to-gether by staff of the statistics department and theoutpatient department, according to the contents oftreatment, at the new center before its opening.


38

III Factors Necessary for Introductionof the User Fee System

Based on a trial on introduction of the user fee sys-tem at NMCHC, the following factors were consid-ered necessary.

1) Policy of the Ministry of Health

In the user fee system, users have to pay fees ac-cording to the content of service, in the situation inwhich adequate medical service cannot be providedthrough the limited budget provided by the Ministryof Health. For success of the system, supply of ser-vices that satisfy users and guaranteed quality ofmedical care are essential. As the attitude of the staffis an important factor in improving service to patients,the Cambodian Ministry of Health decided that eachhospital should submit 1% of the treatment fees col-lected to the Finance Ministry, and apply 50% for itsrunning cost and the remaining 49% as supplemen-tary funds for salaries for hospital staff. In addition,it was decided that, as income of treatment fees in-creased, salary of the staff would also increase, inorder to motivate staff. On the other hand, in order toguarantee the quality of medical service, the Minis-try of Health is supposed to be responsible for check-ing the content of treatment at national hospitals andmedical institutions, inspecting if fee-setting andcharges are appropriate, and monitoring to see if poorpatients are excluded from treatment. In the presentsituation, however, these are not thoroughly pursued.Collection of treatment fees in developing countriesis often considered as shifting from the conventionalcentralized system of budgeting and pharmaceuticalsdistribution by the governmental ministry (Ministryof Health), to a system that emphasizes independenceof each hospital. However, in developing countries,where democratic channels that reflect opinions ofcitizens' groups and patients are not fully cultivated,there is a danger that each hospital can become like aprivate hospital, unless the related governmental min-istry (Ministry of Health) protects people and poorpatients.

2) Information regarding Patients

It is necessary to set appropriate treatment fees inorder to establish a system that maximizes incomefrom patients who can afford to pay and accepts poorpatients to some degree, through collecting informa-tion on patients' health-seeking behavior, medical feesthey actually spend, and their ability to pay. For ex-ample, as to treatment that is not urgent and that pa-tients themselves can voluntarily choose, the fees areset relatively high, and for urgent, essential treatment,the fees are set as low as possible. Also, consider-ations are needed, such as collecting additional feesfor special rooms for hospitalization, enabling patientsto choose according to their budget.

3) Information regarding Medical Staff

In developing countries, the salary for even medi-cal staff at a national hospital is still very low, so theydo not have much enthusiasm to work at their hospi-tal, and sometimes they do not even show up for nor-mal work hours. Or, some medical staff conduct pri-vate treatment after work hours, and some directlyreceive money from patients unofficially, like thoseat NMCHC. Under such circumstances, in order tocollect treatment fees from patients in a proper man-ner, and to thoroughly make them appropriate for thequality of medical care, it is essential to improvemedical staff's attitude toward patients. The conceptthat medical care is considered as service to patientsis not penetrated in many developing countries - andthis can even be said for Japan. For a hospital to in-crease income, it is necessary to make medical staffrealize that they must provide quality care to makepatients choose the hospital even by paying, and thatnot only a clean new hospital building and sufficientpharmaceuticals, but also a good staff attitude towardpatients, is needed.

From the point of personnel management, it is nec-essary to grasp accurate numbers of staff, each staff'sjob description, individual income, and motivation,and to consider means to enhance work enthusiasm,such as having supplementary salary differences thatreflect work performance assessment.

4) Information regarding Treatment Fees

It is necessary to standardize each treatment activ-ity as much as possible; to maintain a certain qualityof medical care; and to calculate the numbers and unitprices of pharmaceuticals and consumable goods thatare needed for that purpose. In order to just collectthe actual costs, the total of these can be used in set-ting fees, but actually, personnel fee allotment to staffmust also be considered.

5) Establishment of the Treatment Fees CollectionSystem

As a specific treatment fee collection system, it isnecessary to establish a system of accurate patientregistration without omission; to secure staff to ac-complish prompt accounting work and conduct re-lated training; to improve accuracy and clearness offinancial management; and to establish standards toprotect poor patients and thoroughly actually imple-ment them, assuming the flow of various proceduresfrom reception of patients to treatment and returninghome.

6) Supply of Information to Patients

Many patients leave everything to the medical staff,always seeing themselves as completely weak, andthink they have to do whatever the staff asks becausetheir very life may depend on it. In the user fee sys-tem, a hospital opens its fees to the public, and clari-

39


fies exemption of payment for poor patients in ad-vance, so this system is considered to be effective inpreventing the situation in which patients are put in aposition of having to directly pay some remunerationto staff, even when it is difficult, by silent compul-sory force from medical staff, as in the past.

IV Consideration

Who will pay for medical fees, and how, are im-portant points in considering the sustainability ofhealth service supply. The "Bamako Initiative,"5

which was introduced in African countries from 1987;and pharmaceuticals revolving fund systems, whichare implemented in Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, andLaos,6 have been spread as a means to make supplyand purchasing of drugs independent and sustainableat the regional or state level. In a market economy, inwhich products and money are exchanged, consum-ers can choose if they will purchase or not, accordingto their financial abilities, after obtaining full infor-mation on products. In a medical economy, however,patients must receive treatment for sudden problems,regardless of their ability to pay. As a means to se-cure funds to implement medical care, there are sev-eral ways, such as for patients themselves to directlypay medical staff; pooling of insurance members'money, as medical insurance, and distribution asneeded; and provision of health care by the govern-ment, using taxes. One medical fee collection methodintroduced in recent years, as a highly practicablemethod in financially tight developing countries, isthe user fee system.

Conventionally, in many developing countries,health service at a public medical institution is freein principle, but actually patients are forced to pay invarious forms, in many cases. Regardless, suppliedhealth services are not necessarily satisfactory. Un-der such circumstances the following have been re-ported: cases in which people are willing to pay forhealth service that offers sufficient pharmaceuticals,a short waiting time, and a good staff attitude;7 andcases in which enabling people to voluntarily chooseto pay for additional service other than medical carehas resulted in successful securing of funds.8 At anyrate, introduction of a user fee system requires theconditions that the quality of supplied health service

is guaranteed, and that sufficient information is givento patients. In developing countries, many staff con-sider health service simply as supply of pharmaceu-ticals and medical skills, and it is necessary to makethem realize the importance of building trusting rela-tions with patients, by handling patients kindly, ex-plaining things to them in an easy-to-understand man-ner, and helping eliminate various anxieties of pa-tients themselves and their families.

In introducing a user fee system, basically the in-come of treatment fees from patients who can affordto pay is allotted to the supplying of free health careto poor people, but for that purpose, it is very impor-tant for hospital management staff to be able to makepredictions and plans, while monitoring the rate ofpoor patients and treatment unit costs, and for themto have personnel management ability to enhanceworkers' motivation.

The demerit of a user fee system is the point thatpoor people's access to health care becomes more dif-ficult, and self-treatment increases, as people try tosave money.9 A health ministry should thoroughlymonitor the performance of the user fee system bypublic medical institutions, by such as making itobligatory for them to accept poor patients at an es-tablished rate or more, in addition to setting the stan-dards for exemption from payment.

Conclusion

The factors considered necessary in the introduc-tion of a user fee system were mentioned above, basedon the case of Cambodia. In developing countries,which have many poor people, a major issue is toguarantee the quality of health care and to sustainablycover costs, and this is also an important subject tobe tackled in future medical cooperation projects.

AcknowledgmentsThe authors express gratitude to Dr. Eng Huot, the

former director, Dr. Koum Kanal, the current direc-tor, Mr. Chea Kum Long, the former chief of the ac-counting department, and other staff at NMCHC, aswell as related experts, who participated in the col-laborative activities of this project on the Cambodianside.

5. S.W. Jarrett and S. Ofosu-Amaah, "Strengthening Health Services for MCH in Africa: The first Years of the 'Bamako Initiative'," Health Policy and Planning, 7(2):164-176, 1992; B. McPake, K. Hanson and A. Mills, "Community Financing of Health Care in Africa: An Evaluation of the Bamako Initiative," Soc. Sci. Med.,36(11): 1383-1395, 1993; J. I. Litvack and C. Bodart, "User Fees Plus Quality Equals Improved Access to Health Care: Results of a Field Experiment in Cameroon,"Soc. Sci. Med., 37(3): 369-383, 1993; I. Ogunvekun et al., "Costs and Financing of Improvements in the Quality of Maternal Health Services through the BamakoInitiative in Nigeria," Health Policy Planning, 11(4): 369-384, 1996; L. Gilson, "The Lessons of User Fee Experience in Africa," Health Policy and Planning, 12(4):273-285, 1997.

6. Hitoshi Murakami, "Management of a Pharmaceuticals Revolving Fund System - A Case Study in Laos," International Cooperation Study, 13 (1): 23-33, 1997.7. M. T. Basett, L. Biflmakers and D.M. Sanders, "Professionalism, Patient Satisfaction and Quality of Health Care: Experience during Zimbabwe's Structural Adjustment

Programme," Soc. Sci. Med., 45(12): 1845-1852, 1997; S. Haddad and P. Fournier, "Quality, Cost and Utilization of Health Services in Developing Countries: ALongitudinal Study in Zaire," Soc. Sci. Med. 40(6): 743-753, 1995; B. McPake, "User Charges for Health Services in Developing Countries: A Review of theEconomic Literature," Soc. Sci. Med., 36(11): 1397-1405, 1993.

8. S. Thomas, JR Killingsworth and S. Acharya, "Usera Fees, Self-selection and the Poor in Bangladesh," Health Policy and Planning, 13(1): 50-58, 1998.9. W. K. Asenso-Okyere et al, "Cost Recovery in Ghana: Are There Any Cahges in Health Care Seeking Behaviour?" Health Policy and Planning, 13(2): 181-188, 1998.

41

Agricultural Development and Soybean Cultivaion by Japanese Farmers in Paraguay

CASE STUDY

Agricultural Development and Soybean Cultivationby Japanese Farmers in Paraguay

— From the Introduction of Non-Tillage Cultivation to an Environmental

Conservation-Type Approach for Upland Farming —

Kazuo NAGAI Resident Representative, JICA Bolivia Office

Looking back on the history of Japanese settlement in Paraguay as a case for agriculture and rural develop-ment, the author traced "From the Introduction on Non-tillage Cultivation to the Approach of an Environ-mental Conservation System for Upland Farming" based on the information available at the AgriculturalTechnology Center in Paraguay (CETAPAR), JICA Paraguay Office.

Failure of the soybean crop in 1982 due to soil erosion from heavy rains became a turning point for non-tillage cultivation, which CETAPAR had been striving to introduce. The success in non-tillage cultivationthat Japanese farmers found in 1983 with wheat, and in 1984 with soybean, became an opportunity for thecultivation to take root in Paraguay. Non-tillage cultivation not only prevents soil erosion, but also im-proves productivity. These benefits were recognised by farmers, and non-tillage cultivation rapidly spreadfrom a few devoted farmers to Japanese farmers in the entire Yguazu settlement, and then to Japanesefarmers in other regions, and finally to the rest of Paraguay.

Non-tillage cultivation has benefited Japanese farmers in the country by advancing the seedtime ofsoybeans, through soil mulching using plant residue from previous crops, and through the introduction ofgreen manure in winter. Based on these advantages, the farmers are now trying to introduce environmen-tally-friendly sustainable agriculture.

JICA started two activities in Paraguay, each with a five-year implementation period. An in-countrytraining course named "Sustainable Agriculture based on Non-tillage Cultivation in Crop Production" com-menced in 1996 in order to support small-scale farmers, and project-type technical cooperation called"Research Project on Soybean Production in Paraguay" began in August 1997. The Japan InternationalResearch Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheriesalso launched "Comprehensive Studies on Soybean Improvement, Production and Utilisation in SouthAmerica" in 1997 with CETAPAR as the base. This exemplifies the extensive Japanese support toward thedevelopment of environmental conservation-type sustainable agriculture in the region.

When we examine the development process that Japanese farmers in Paraguay have experienced sincethey first settled in the country, there are several key concepts that relate to their agricultural and ruraldevelopment. They are: the degree of difficulty in introducing new technology from the local environment'spoint of view, the degree of difficulty of access to information and technology, and the degree of difficultyof access to necessary development funds. These key concepts include important lessons Japanese farmershave learned through their painstaking efforts, which began in 1936.

I Soybean Non-tillage Cultivation

1. From Its Introduction to Taking RootIn South America, the introduction of non-tillage cul-tivation first took place in Brazil. Experimental culti-

vation started in 1971,1 and its full-scale introductionto farmers began in the late 1970s, chiefly in the Stateof Parana. In Argentina, non-tillage cultivation startedaround the agricultural year of 1975/76, slightly laterthan in Brazil, and in Chile, it was adopted into the

*This article was first published in Japanese in Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu Vol. 16 No.1 (April 2000).1. Chiaki Aoyama, "Paraguay niokeru Daizu, Komugi no Seisan to Nikkei Nouka no Ayumi (Soybean and Wheat Production and history of Japanese Farmers in

Paraguay)," Iju-Kenkyu (Immigration Studies), 32:1-10, 19952. Association for the Study of Non-tillage Cultivation of Japanese Farmers in Paraguay (Ed), Paraguay niokeru Fukouki Saibai (Non-tillage Cultivation in Paraguay,)

1993


42

crop pattern of corn and wheat in 1978.2 Thus, non-tillage cultivation began to spread among farmersengaged in upland field crops in the southern SouthAmerica in the late 1970s with Brazil as its centre.

The mechanization of soybean cultivation pro-gressed also in Paraguay in the1970s, and soil ero-sion and degradation became problematic. Some pri-vate and corporate farmers tried non-tillage cultiva-tion, but most went back to tillage cultivation withina few years. As a result, the introduction and adop-tion of non-tillage cultivation in Paraguay lagged be-hind that of other countries in South America anddidn't begin to take root until well into the1980s.

In order to address the soil conservation issues, theAgricultural Technology Center in Paraguay (CentroTechnológico Agropecuario en Paraguay: CETAPAR)

of JICA Paraguay Office invited upland farming ex-perts from Brazil in 1979 and introduced non-tillagecultivation to Japanese farmers in Paraguay. Also in1980, CETAPAR started comparative experiments ofcultivation methods and proved that non-tillage cul-tivation had no less productivity than conventionaltillage cultivation. Meanwhile, soil erosion resultingfrom heavy rains that struck the Yguazu settlement inNovember 1982 led Japanese farmers in the settle-ment to adopt non-tillage cultivation. Isamu Kubomaesucceeded in wheat cultivation, starting with the 1983winter crop, and Akinobu Fukami in cultivating soy-bean cultivation extensively (160ha), starting with the1984 spring crop. With their successes as a turningpoint, non-tillage cultivation came to take root in Para-guay.

43


Thus, success of non-tillage cultivation in Paraguaywith an extensive scale was brought about by the ef-fort of Japanese farmers. "Non-tillage Cultivation inParaguay,"3 published in September 1993, gives a de-tailed account from the introduction of non-tillage cul-tivation to its taking root in Paraguay. According tothis account, the three main reasons why farmers de-cided to adopt non-tillage cultivation were:

(1) It seemed impossible for the next generation tocontinue farming on the same farmland becauserain kept washing away topsoil.

(2) It took too much time to till the land with tillagecultivation, delaying seeding. Consequently, be-ing unable to seize the best time for seeding re-sulted in the lower crop yield.

(3) Soil erosion could not been prevented by con-tour-terrace farming.

Although there is no clear evidence to show that

soil degradation, due to erosion, and delayed seedingdirectly affected crop yields, average crop yields priorto the spread of non-tillage cultivation (1980 - 1985)ranged between 1200kg/ha to 1500kg/ha4 for Japa-nese farmers and 1200kg/ha to 1800kg/ha5 for all ofParaguay.

Table 1 summarises the process of non-tillage cul-tivation from its introduction to its taking root in Para-guay based on information available from CETAPAR.Before the introduction of non-tillage cultivation,soybean cultivation by Japanese farmers was prac-tised mainly in settlements in the south, in particular,La Paz, Pilapo, and Chaves. In the Yguazu settlement,vegetable and upland farming coexisted alongside ofcattle raising. Upland farming was introduced late tothe settlement and it was generally considered thatSouth Paraguay was more advanced in upland farm-ing and technology than was this region. However,the Yguazu region became a pioneer in regard to theintroduction of non-tillage cultivation.

There are two reasons for this. First, while it is saidthat "non-tillage cultivation reduces yield for at leastthe first three years after its introduction," there were"devoted farmers"6 who decided to carry out non-till-age cultivation on an extensive scale in order to pre-vent soil erosion. Second, since the Yguazu settle-ment was "a relatively new area for upland farming,"farmers were "not prepossessed with using conven-tional techniques," and it had "little soil degradationand weed emergence" in its farming land. From a tech-nical point of view, therefore, Yguazu settlement hadan environment in which non-tillage cultivation couldeasily succeed.7 In addition, it should be also men-tioned that, because CETAPAR was in Yguazu, farm-ers were in an environment that afforded them easier

3. Ibid.4. Akira Matsuda, "Paraguay Nikkei Ijuchi Nougyou no Genjou to Kadai: Ijuchi Nouka Keizai Chosa Kekka yori (Actual Situation and Problems of Agriculture in

Japanese Settlements of Paraguay: From the Research Findings on Economic Survey Households by Settlements), " CETAPAR Gijutu Jouhou (CETAPAR TechnologicalInformation) No.95 (01), 1995

5. FAO: Production Yearbook. Vol.23, 26, 29, 32, 25, 38, 41, 44, 47 and 50, Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Rome6. A. Matsuda, op. cit.7. Agricultural Technology Center in Paraguay, Fukoki Saibai Karenda (Non-tillage Cultivation Calendar), JICA Paraguay Office, 1994.


44

and more prompt access to non-tillage cultivation in-formation and technology than farmers in other re-gions.

2. The Spread of Non-tillage CultivationNon-tillage cultivation first spread inside the Yguazusettlement. Pioneers recognized several benefitsthrough their experiences with non-tillage cultivation.In addition to reducing soil erosion and taking ad-vantage of the best seedtime, the primary objectivesfor introducing non-tillage cultivation, their produc-tion costs were reduced by 26%8 (taking into accountthe depreciation of agricultural machinery) and prof-its increased. These benefits spurred the spread of non-tillage cultivation (Table 2).

Figure 1 shows changes in the ratio of areas usingnon-tillage cultivation in the Japanese settlements. Inthe Yguazu settlement, non-tillage cultivation rapidlyspread thanks to the leadership of pioneers and theYguazu agricultural co-operative, and the active ex-changes of information and technology between co-op members. Extension to other settlements owesgreatly to the efforts of the aforementioned the Asso-ciation for the Study of Non-Tillage Cultivation ofJapanese Farmers in Paraguay (Table 1). This asso-ciation was organized by all of the Japanese farmersin Paraguay who shared a common interest in non-

tillage cultivation regardless of membership in anyexisting autonomous community or agricultural co-operative. At that time, most farmers outside theYguazu settlement were not receptive to non-tillagecultivation, and thus it was difficult for each regionalco-operative to introduce it independently. Underthese conditions, the association played a crucial rolein spreading non-tillage cultivation, helping CETAPARto conduct technological seminars and study tours toBrazil (where non-tillage cultivation was more ad-vanced) , and encouraging daily exchange of techno-logical information among its members. By the be-ginning of 1990, the success of the Yguazu settle-ment in non-tillage cultivation had become so wellknown, and, in 1991, the Minister of Agriculture andLivestock of the Government of Paraguay even at-tended one of the non-tillage cultivation seminars heldby CETAPAR. In 1993, the spread of non-tillage cul-tivation, which had been slow until then, started topick up speed in reaching other settlements so thatby 1993, it had been adopted in more than 50% ofcultivation areas of Japanese settlements and by morethan 75% in 1994.

Although the spread of non-tillage cultivation toGerman, Brazilian, and Paraguayan farmers fell be-hind that of Japanese farmers, the rate of the spreadof non-tillage cultivation in Paraguay in 1996 was

8. Association for the Study of Non-tillage Cultivation of Japanese Farmers in Paraguay, op. cit.

45


about 40%, according to the Ministry of Agricultureand Livestock estimates.9 Therefore, beginning withthe trail production of 1983 in the Yguazu settlement,non-tillage cultivation spread to all of Paraguay inless than a decade. Excepting for the spread of newvarieties, this new technology spread at an unprec-edented rate.

One of the reasons for the rapid spread was thatnon-tillage cultivation was a profitable technology.In other words, it is a revolutionary technology that,while preventing soil erosion, increases yield and re-ducing production costs. In addition, subsequent tech-nological development, especially that of herbicides,has made non-tillage cultivation so easy that anyonecan adopt it.10 As farmers can recognised improve-ment in productivity, non-tillage cultivation spreadrapidly. This rapid spread of non-tillage cultivation,from a few devoted farmers, to Japanese farmers in

the Yguazu settlement, Japanese farmers in other re-gions, and then finally to the rest of Paraguay wasfacilitated by efforts of "a study group of Japanesenon-tillage cultivation farmers," the extension activi-ties by CETAPAR that supported the study group, andfinancing and subsidiary programs by JICA that pro-moted the introduction of specialized seeding ma-chines for non-tillage cultivation .

3. Benefits and Problems of Non-tillageCultivation

Table 3 shows the benefits and problems of non-till-age cultivation as recognised by the farmers. Ben-efits such as an increased yield and a rather smallerdecrease of yield under drought conditions than con-ventional cultivation, all of which result from non-tillage cultivation, need to be studied for factor analy-sis by technical experts.

9. Y. Seki, W. Asada, and K. Hoshiba, Practice of Soybean Non-tillage Cultivation in Paraguay, CETAPAR-JICA, 1998.10. Shinjirou Kanazawa, "Jizokuteki Kankyo Hozengata Nougyou toshiteno Fukoki Saibai: Hatasaku no Shuryo to Dojou no Tokusei (Non-tillage Cultivation as a

Sustainable and Environmental Conservation Agricultural System: Crop Yields and Characteristics of Soil)," Nihon Dojo Hiryou Kagaku Zasshi (Japan Soil ManureScience Magazine), 66(3): 286-297, 1995.


46

Non-tillage cultivation comes not only with ben-efits but also with problems. The need for financingspecialized machinery limits the adoption of non-till-age cultivation by more farmers. The problems re-lated to the effect of herbicides, determining the bestseedtime, and causes of malformed germination, how-ever, have something to do with the level of technol-ogy of farmers who take on non-tillage cultivation.These problems are expected to be solved throughthe farmers' experiences. In terms of the mid-to-long-term view, an increase in ratio of weeds difficult tocontrol, hardening of top soil, accumulation of fertil-izer on soil surface, and outbreaks of pests and dis-ease caused by plant residue from previous crops areseveral problems which need to be addressed.11

II Approach to Sustainable Upland Farming

1. Soybean Cultivation Technology using Non-tillage Cultivation

The primary purpose of the introduction of non-till-age cultivation was to prevent soil erosion. Along withthe spread of non-tillage cultivation, soybean culti-vation also became possible in steeply inclined plainsand sandy land, which had been abandoned becausesoil erosion was inevitable using conventional tillagecultivation. Figure 2 and 3 summarise results fromthe economic survey of farm households by settle-ment, which is conducted by CETAPAR every year.As these figures clearly show, the size of the cultiva-tion area for soybeans in the Yguazu settlement ex-panded rapidly along with the spread of non-tillagecultivation. The introduction of non-tillage cultiva-tion means the omission of tilling, which has broughtabout several changes in the usual crop patterns. Oneof the changes is that the seed timing for soybeans ismoved earlier. With tillage cultivation, seeding couldnot be started earlier than November. With non-till-age cultivation, seeding can be started from October.

Optimum seeding time is said to have resulted in in-creased crop yields. Another change is the introduc-tion of oat cultivation to replace wheat in winter crop-ping. This makes good use of soil mulching effect byplant residue from previous crops (It prevents soilerosion, eliminates weeds, and controls of soil mois-ture and temperature.) Oats have been introduced,since oats as green manure are cut above the groundand used as mulcting materials. In particular, the cul-tivation of oats has increased, because it has effectson increase of the organic substances in soil and thesoil improvement where soil fertility is poor or hasbeen lost (Figure 4).

2. New AttemptsUnder a simple two-crop-per-year rotation with soy-bean and wheat, farmers would like to enlarge thebusiness scale for further development while main-taining the existing cropping pattern if possible. First,because soybean is an international commodity, thereare relatively few problems with its marketing anddistribution. Second, the introduction of non-tillagecultivation technology and new varieties tend to in-crease and stabilize crop yields. Third, and above all,in more than 10 years of continual non-tillage culti-vation there have been no major problems. However,with concerns over pests, as seen with Stem Cankerdisease and the loss of soil fertility caused by thesimple two-crop-per-year rotation, has led farmers tobelieve that further sustainable agriculture is impos-sible unless they consider alternative crop rotationssuch as introducing green manure crops to controlweeds and maintain soil fertility. On the other hand,the introduction of non-tillage cultivation has ex-tended the arable land area for soybean cultivationand the length of seedtime. This, in turn, has estab-lished a foundation upon which farmers can make newattempts toward more sustainable agriculture.

The Association for the Study of Non-tillage Cul-tivation of Japanese Farmers in Paraguay dissolved

11. Y. Seki, W. Asada, and K. Hoshiba, op. cit.

47


and the Association for the Study of Sustainable Farm-ing of Paraguay was established under the directionof CETAPAR in September 1993. Under the sloganof "Promotion of ecologically-friendly sustainable ag-riculture", the association aims at formulating a newpattern of crop rotation based on non-tillage cultiva-tion and realising an integrated agriculture incorpo-rating upland crops together with livestock and lowchemical farming with consideration for environmen-tal conservation.

3. Japan's Technical Co-operation andCETAPAR Activities

The Government of Paraguay has been conductingresearches and experiments on upland cropping,mainly in the Regional Center of Agricultural Inves-tigation under the Ministry of Agriculture and Live-stock (Centro Regional de Investigación Agrícola:CRIA, established in 1952) in Capitanmiranda, lo-cated about 18km north-east of Encarnación City.Japan has provided CRIA with facilities and equip-ment through grant aid program (15 billion yen in1979 including allocations for a forestry-training cen-ter). Also Japan carried out two project-type techni-cal co-operations called "Project for Agriculture andForestry Development in South Paraguay" (March1979-March 1988) and "The Main Grain Crops Pro-duction Project of Grain Production" (June 1990-March 1997). CRIA is situated close to the Japanesesettlements of Pilapo and La Paz, and is located inItapua Prefecture, Paraguay's most important grainproduction region. Through these projects, Japan hasattempted to improve CRIA's research functions andthe skills of their technical staffs regarding majorgrains such as soybean and wheat.

Based on the previous co-operation, anotherproject-type technical co-operation called "ResearchProject on Soybean Production in Paraguay" with afive-year implementation period commenced at CRIAin August 1997. The project aims to improve the re-search skills of CRIA regarding soybean breeding andcultivation and soil management. CETAPAR joinedthis project as an associated organisation in order todevelop a superior variety of soybean suitable for AltoParana Prefecture. The following will be addressedthrough the project:

(1) Improvement of breeding technology-Collection of and search for breeding materialsand their ecological classification

-Research on breeding technology for develop-ing superior soybean variety

-Improvement of technology for verification teston disease resistance

(2) Improvement of cultivation technology-Research on crop diversification techniques forbefore/after soybean cropping

-Research on stable and high yielding soybean

cultivation techniques(3) Improvement of soil management technology

-Research on soil management technology fornewly developed cultivation area

Along with the collaborative activities of thisproject-type technical co-operation, CETAPAR addedthe task of developing a new crop rotation of ‘5 cropsin two years’ by adding corn and sunflower, etc., tothe primary soybean crop in order to establish thesustainable agriculture that the Association for theStudy of Sustainable farming of Paraguay is aimingfor.12 With this new crop rotation, several benefits canbe expected: 1) The introduction of new crop rota-tions will lower the possibility of injuries caused bycontinuous cropping; 2) Introducing green manurewill maintain and enhance soil fertility; and 3) Cov-ering the ground surface with crops at all times willprevent the soil from degrading and minimise weedemergence.

The Japan International Research Center for Agri-cultural Sciences (JIRCAS) of the Ministry of Agri-culture, Forestry and Fisheries also launched "Com-prehensive Studies on Soybean Improvement, Pro-duction, and Utilisation in South America (Paraguay,Brazil, and Argentina)" in 1997 with CETAPAR asone of the base. Thus, the extensive Japanese supporttoward the development of environmental conserva-tion-type sustainable agriculture in the region, withsoybean being the primary crop of non-tillage culti-vation.

III Summary

The soybean cultivation that had taken root in Para-guay through the efforts of Japanese farmers tookanother great leap forward with the introduction andpopularization of non-tillage cultivation by these Japa-nese farmers. Initially, non-tillage cultivation was in-troduced for the purpose of soil conservation. How-ever, farmers themselves recognised many additionalbenefits, including optimum seeding time, increasedyield, and cost reduction, and as a result, it rapidlyspread from the Japanese farmers to farmers all overParaguay. Interestingly, non-tillage cultivation startedin the Yguazu region in East Paraguay, which doesnot have a very long history of upland crop cultiva-tion, and not in South Paraguay, which was the cen-ter of upland crop cultivation. Although there is nodoubt that the success of non-tillage cultivation owesmuch to " the devoted farmers' effort", we cannotoverlook other factors that contributed to its success.For example, Yguazu was a relatively "new uplandcrop production area with soil fertility, and not pre-possessed with conventional techniques". Also, therewere "positive contributions by agricultural study

12. Agricultural Technology Center in Paraguay(ed.), 1995 CETAPAR Nenpou (CETAPAR Annual Report 1995), JICA Paraguay office, 1996.


48

groups" and JICA's Agricultural Technology Center(CETAPAR) that provided farmers with "an environ-ment which afforded easy and prompt access to in-formation and technology".

The Yguazu region, which first succeeded in non-tillage cultivation rapidly expanded its area of soy-bean cultivation and has developed the largest perfarmer area of soybean cultivation among Japanesesettlements. Japanese farmers in Paraguay have nowbegun to approach "sustainable agriculture" whichpresupposes environmentally friendly and sustainableagriculture.

Today, soybean production has taken the lead aheadof cotton and has grown to be the largest agriculturalexport product, indispensable in the development ofParaguay. Reflecting the importance of soybeans inParaguay, Japan is not only supporting it throughCETAPAR's activities but also carrying out the 'Re-search Project on Soybean Production in Paraguay'as technical co-operation. The Japan InternationalResearch Center for Agricultural Sciences (JIRCAS)of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheriesis also carrying out 'Comprehensive Studies on Soy-bean Improvement, Production, and Utilisation inSouth America' targeting the soybean production ar-eas of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay.

In Closing

Japanese emigrants are much different from averagefarmers in Paraguay in that Japanese farmers havebeen eligible to receive some financial and technicalsupport, although small, from the Japanese govern-ment. However, the history of Japanese settlements,which began with the colonization in raw lands of adeveloping country, is a valuable case for agriculturaland rural development. The author, therefore, hastraced its agricultural development in this study en-titled "Agricultural Development and Soybean Cul-tivation by Japanese Farmers —from the introduc-tion of non-tillage cultivation to the approach of anenvironmental conservation system for upland farm-ing—."

When we examine the development process thatJapanese farmers in Paraguay have experienced sincethey first settled in the country, there are several keyfactors that relate to their agricultural and rural de-velopment. They are: "the right crop for the rightland," "the size of the market," "changes in the mar-ket environment," "the existence of devoted farmers,""the existence of an agricultural farmers study group,""the degree of difficulty in introducing new technol-ogy from the local environment's point of view," "thedegree of difficulty of access to information and tech-

nology," "the degree of difficulty of access to neces-sary development funds." These key factors includeimportant lessons that Japanese farmers have learnedthrough their painstaking efforts, which began in1936.

For the national development of Paraguay, support-ing small-scale farmers and the conservation of thenatural environment are considered to be the two mostimportant themes. The non-tillage cultivation of soy-beans, which mid-scale Japanese farmers have strivento develop, has now started to draw attention as animportant crop and technology for saving small-scalefarmers. Recognising the attempts of CETAPAR tosupport small-scale farmers, JICA launched the in-country training course of " Environmentally Sustain-able Agriculture Based on Non-tillage Cultivation inUpland Crop Production" with a five-year implemen-tation period in co-operation with the Ministry ofAgriculture and Stock-farming in Paraguay in 1996.

Cyst-nematodes of the soybeans found in the Stateof Mato Grosso, Brazil, has spread to other soybeancultivation areas and it may only be a matter of timebefore it reaches Paraguay. Although non-tillage cul-tivation is considered to contribute to environmentalconservation, there are many problems still to besolved. The author hopes, however, all these prob-lems will be solved with the effort of the Paraguaygovernment and the support of assistance organiza-tions, and above all, through the efforts of the farm-ers themselves so that it becomes the world center ofenvironmental conservation-type upland farming. Ibelieve that Japanese farmers will play an importantrole in this development process.

ReferencesEmbajada del Japón, Asuncion-Paraguay: Materiales

Informativos sobre La Coopración Japonesa,Japanese Embassy in Paraguay, 1997.

Igarashi, Takanori: "Brasil, Argentine niokeru Saikinno Nougyou Jijou (The Current Review of Agri-culture in Brazil and Argentina)," Kikan-Hiryou(Manure Quarterly), 78: 99-111, 1997.

International Co-operation Association for Agricul-ture and Forestry (ed.): Paraguay Noboku-gyono Genjou: 1991-nen Nougoku-gyo Sensasu noKekka kara (The Actual Situation of Agricultureand Livestock in Paraguay: From the 1991 Cen-sus Results of Agriculture and Livestock), theInternational Co-operation Association for Ag-riculture and Forestry, 1993.

Kokubun, Makie: "Paraguay Yguazu Ijuchi no DaizuFukoki Saibai (Soybean Non-tillage Cultivationin the Yguazu settlement in Paraguay)," Nouen(The Farm), 72(3): 47-50. 1997.

49

Japan's Assistance in the Field of Education for Children andAdults with Disabilities

*This article was first published in Japanese in Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu 16 No.1 (April 2000). 1. The following events serve as a background: "Ten Years of People with Disabilities in Asia and Pacific Region," formulated by the Economic and Social Commission

for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in 1993; and "A Plan for People with Disabilities - 7-year Plan for Normalization," (advocates the promotion of internationalcooperation and exchange, which are appropriate to Japan) formulated by Japan's Prime Minister's Office Headquarters to Promote Measures for Disabled Persons in1993. Concerning the field of education of the disabled, JICA presented the education of the socially marginalized, such as the disabled, as one of the five key fieldsfor future educational support by Japan in its Issue-wise Study on Educatioon and Development published in 1994. Regarding the disabled's participation in internationalcooperation, JICA issued Basic Study Report entitled Participation of Disabled Persons in the International Cooperation Project (the Phase I).

CASE STUDY


— A Study of Assistance for Early Special Education of Hearing-Impaired

in Sri Lanka in the 1980s. —

Hiroko FURUTAAssociate Professor, Department of Special Education,

Faculty of Education, Kumamoto University

This paper aims to offer suggestions concerning Japan's future assistance in the field of education of chil-dren and adults with disabilities. In particular, this study was intended to clarify the characteristics, effectsand several problems concerning Japan's assistance in the field. This study focuses on the activities in theearly special education of hearing-impaired children in Sri Lanka carried out by three Japanese experts inthe 1980's, here called the "Pre-school Project." People in both countries involved in the project evaluate the Pre-school Project. Japan provided assis-tance in early special education, which was a rather difficult field for Sri Lanka to develop alone. Ten yearslater, it was found that some of the schools and institutes developed a leadership role in the field. Thisproject deserves high praise. As far as the social impact and long-term effects of the Pre-school Project are concerned, it can beconcluded that only when a school has stable management and the needs for early special education arerecognized among teachers, the project is accepted and has a long-term effect. It is worth pointing out that the Pre-school project was identified and initiated by a teacher who hadparticipated in an NGO. The importance of project identification in the field of the education of childrenand adults with disabilities remains unchanged today. To promote the formulation of projects in the field,carefully planned personal exchanges, such as grass roots cooperation among NGOs, are needed as well asODA's active support of such activities. One of the problems raised about the Pre-school Project was that there was no organizational support,from a professional view point, for the project in Japan. Therefore, the assistance had to be implemented byexpert individuals, which put excessive burden on these individual experts. In order to expand the dispatchof incumbent teachers, the experience and information gained through past aid project should be properlyaccumulated and provided. Furthermore, a special organization should be established to offer professionalsupport.

Introduction

Recently in Japan, interest in international coopera-tion in the field of assistance to people with disabili-ties has been growing.1 Assisting people with dis-abilities encompasses various fields, including edu-cation, welfare and rehabilitation, providing servicesto the families of the disabled, and self-empowermentof people with disabilities. However, the history ofJapan's technical cooperation in this area is still very

short. In particular, past cases in the field of educa-tion for children and adults with disabilities have notbeen sufficiently examined. In order to make Japan'sassistance to developing countries in these fields moreeffective, we need to comprehensively evaluate/ex-amine our past aid activities. This paper aims to offersuggestions concerning Japan's future assistance in thefield of education of children and adults with disabili-ties. In particular, this study is intended to clarify thecharacteristics, problems and effect of Japan's assis-


50

2. In this paper, all early educational and welfare services provided to children with disabilities during pre-school are uniformly referred to as Early Special Education. 3. Assistance in 1) is described in the following two documents as nothing more than "was effective": (1) JICA, the Country Study Report for Japan's ODA to Sri Lanka,

P. 211, 1991; (2) H. Uemura, "Shogai Bunya no Kokusai Kyoryoku: Philippine, Sri Lanka no Jirei (International Cooperation in the Fields of Disabilities: Cases of thePhilippines and Sri Lanka)," Ajiken Warudo Torendo (Asian Study and World Trend) No. 24: pp. 20-21, 1997.

4. These are 25 periodic reports and a comprehensive report for the total dispatched period of 6 years and 8 months excluding 1 year and 2 months during which thereport was not available). These reports, written in Japanese, describe the conditions at each school from the Japanese teachers' point of view and were used as primaryresources for analysis.

5. The school was established with the support of the Anglican Church in 1912. It is regarded as the first school in Sri Lanka for the education of disabled persons.

and 3) research by visiting schools including a pre-school.

I Outline and Basic Policies ofthe "Pre-school Project"

In 1980, a teacher from the Tokyo School for the Deafwas dispatched to the Department of Social Servicesof Sri Lanka as a JICA expert. The teacher opened apre-school, starting with the Ratmalana School forthe Deaf 5 (hereafter called School A) in the suburbof Colombo, and then added four more schools. Af-ter this expert had completed her two-year assign-ment and returned to Japan, two more teachers fromTokyo were dispatched. The last teacher stayed until1987. The counterparts of the dispatched experts werethe teachers in charge of the pre-schools in the re-spective schools for the deaf. Among them, three fromSchool A and one from School B came to Japan toreceive training under the JICA's Training Program.Two participants received three months of trainingand the other two participants received six months.In this paper, these consecutive dispatches of expertsover seven years are considered to be one project, andcalled the "Pre-school Project."

Some of the equipment provided through the Pre-school Project was hearing test rooms, various typesof audiometers, air conditioners for examination

tance in the field.Japan has been assisting Sri Lanka since the 1980s

in the field of education of children and adults withdisabilities. This is the only assistance project thatJapan has continued to provide in the field. In SriLanka, Sweden has promoted integrated education asits basic policy in assistance, which has had greatimpact upon the policy and practice of educatingpeople with disabilities. Japan, on the other hand,has promoted education for those with impaired hear-ing, and more particularly, consistently focused itsaid on early special education.2 Japan's activities haveincluded: 1) dispatching JICA experts to assist in es-tablishing and developing pre-schools for hearing-impaired children between 1980 and 1987 and 2) dis-patching Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers(JOCV) to assist in establishing and developing localsmall-scale pre-schools in the 1990s.This study fo-cuses on the former activities for discussion becauseafter their long and continued implementation theywere carried into the latter activities, bringing aboutnew development. The activities between 1980 and1987 played a significant role in determining the di-rection of Japan's aid policy.3

This study undertakes 1) a literary study of litera-ture and documents collected at local sites which werebased on reports from dispatched experts4 2) inter-views with key people in both Japan and Sri Lanka,

51


rooms, group hearing aids, and cassette tape record-ers, etc.

The components of the assistance are shown inTable 1. Also, an overview of the institutions wherethe early special education was conducted is shownin Table 2.

Because the basic policies concerning assistanceto the Pre-school Project were not clearly defined fromthe beginning, the author attempted to identify themfrom the reports (especially from the guidance planreport) of each expert. It became clear that the initialbasic policies of "opening a pre-school in a schoolfor the deaf, providing counterparts with training inteaching methods and theory, and promoting earlyspecial education for hearing-impaired children",were gradually expanded to include "setting up SchoolA as a model school, and improving not only the qual-ity of the pre-school but also that of the school for thedeaf as a whole." The analysis in this study focusesparticularly on the assistance for establishing anddeveloping the pre-school.

II Effects of the Pre-school Project

The Pre-school Project achieved its initial objectiveof opening pre-schools. However, this is not suffi-cient to conclude that the aid was effective. It is noteasy to quantitatively measure the effect of a smallproject like the Pre-school Project, in which the ben-eficiaries in the recipient country are a very limitedrange of people. In this section, the author attemptsto clarify the effect of the aid given by qualitativelyassessing how persons concerned in both countries

evaluated the Project and what kind of social impact6

and long-term effect the project made.

1. Evaluation by the people concernedin both countries

Comprehensive reports submitted to JICA by everydispatched expert after completing their missionsdescribed say that, although the opening of pre-schools in five out of 15 schools for the deaf is sig-nificant, the pre-schools do not always function ad-equately. The reports also say that issuing reports andguidebooks are recognized as successful results.7

In a report by the Economic Cooperation Bureauof the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japanese Em-bassy in Sri Lanka reported that "the experts whoworked during the three different periods of the Pre-school Project maintained consistency by sharing theirawareness of problems as well as activity policies,and that they were able to deal with areas that gov-ernment-based cooperation was not able to promptlycope with." They also report that "Projects in the so-cial welfare field tend to be overlooked in inter-gov-ernmental cooperation, but that this project was com-pleted with the cooperation of an NGO.8"

Furthermore, a member of the Department of So-cial Services who was directly in charge of the projectsummarized the history of the Pre-school Project andpaid particular attention to the F-Pre-school for Hear-ing-Impaired Children9 (hereafter called Pre-schoolF). Pre-school F is highly praised for the fact that manychildren who graduate from the pre-school go on toan ordinary local elementary school.10

Interviews with Sri Lankan people in the concernedinstitutions were conducted to get their review 10

6. The social impact was brought to my attention by the following literature. H. Sato, "'Enjo no Shakaiteki Eikyo' heno Apurochi (Approach to the 'Social Impact of theAid.')," H. Sato (ed.) Enjo no Shakaiteki Eikyo (Social Impact of the Aid), Asian Economic Research Institute, 1994.

7. M. Hanmoto, "Sogo Gyomu Hokokusho (Final Working Report)," JICA internal document,1982; K. Hamasaki, " Senmonka Sougou Hokokusho (Final WorkingReport)," JICA internal document, 1984.

8. Economic Cooperation Evaluation Committee in the Economic Cooperation Bureau of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Sri Lanka Rou Kyoiku Senmonka Haken (Reporton the Dispatches of Experts of Education for the Deaf in Sri Lanka)," Keizai Kyoryoku Hyoka Hokokusho (Economic Cooperation Evaluation), 1989.

9. This facility was established by a former teacher of the pre-school who left School B in 1983 with the support of parents of hearing-impaired children, and ENTdoctors.

10. I. Basnayaka, Rehabilitation of Disabled Persons in Sri Lanka, The Department of Social Services, n.d. (circa 1991 based on the content).


52

years after the Project ended. Their evaluations ofthe Pre-school Project were overall positive.11 Theauthor also conducted interviews with several parentsof children who received early special education atSchool A, and with counterpart teachers who weredeeply involved in the project. It was found that mostparents were satisfied with the information they re-ceived concerning deafness early on and they have apositive impression of the education their childrenreceived.12 The teachers praised the dispatched for-eign experts for playing an important role in coordi-nating ministries/agencies and the schools. They werealso amazed by the language training provided by thedispatched experts which incorporated plays.13

As stated above, in general, the persons concernedin both Japan and Sri Lanka and the beneficiariespositively evaluated the Pre-school Project.

2. The Social Impact of the Pre-school ProjectAs an attempt to gauge the social impact of assis-tance projects, Hiroshi Sato14 pays attention to thereaction of the recipient society regarding the project,and categorized four types of reaction : 1) the projectis accepted, 2) the project is partially accepted, 3) theproject is not accepted and people are indifferent aboutit, and 4) the project is rejected.

The major events and activities of each pre-schooldescribed in the periodic expert reports are summa-rized school by school and people's reactions are cat-egorized according to Sato's evaluation. Two schoolsout of five "accepted" the Project, and three out offive "partially accepted" it. These cases are describedin detail below. None of the schools fell into the re-maining two categories.

1) Cases in which the Project was accepted

The Project was accepted without any resistancein Schools A and B. In particular, in School A, oneteacher who was strongly motivated to develop earlyspecial education was assigned to the pre-school, andanother non-certified teacher was assigned as an as-sistant by the Board from its opening.15 School Ahad the same teachers allocated to the pre-school fora long time. This shows the depth of the recognitionof needs that School A had towards Early SpecialEducation. Further, the school did not require chil-

dren to live in a boarding house, which is requiredfor children above the elementary school level, butadopted the same practice as that of Japan, in whichmother and child commute to school.

2) Cases in which the Project was partially accepted

The Department of Social Services, to which thedispatched experts belonged, requested the expertsto open more pre-schools in other schools for the deaf.It seems that because of the characteristics of the op-eration of the Department of Social Services, moreemphasis was placed on expanding the service provi-sions without paying attention to the content of theeducation. Consequently, some schools for the deafopened a pre-school, just to receive aid, before theneeds for early special education had been sufficientlyrecognized at the school.

Schools C, D and E were schools for the deaf withthe strong characteristics of a charity facility. In theseschools, most children lived in a boarding house andthere was not much emphasis on educational guid-ance, so the needs for early special education werenot necessarily recognized. It appears that theyopened the pre-school expecting equipment to be sup-plied and chances to receive training in Japan and notbecause they believed there was any significance inearly special education as encouraged by the Depart-ment of Social Services. In one school, a relative of akey Board member was assigned to be teacher at thepre-school. In these three schools, the pre-schoolclosed for long periods of time, teachers were fre-quently absent from work and teachers changed fre-quently within a short period. Also, children tendedto be five years old or older and the pre-school pro-vided more preparatory education than early specialeducation.

3. The Long-term Effect of the ProjectThe long-term effect of the Pre-school Project wasevaluated from the viewpoint of continuity and de-velopment of the assistance. The author visited eachschool in July and August of 1997, 10 years after theProject had ended, to investigate the conditions at eachpre-school, and the present situation of the counter-parts at that time. The findings are shown in Table 3.In the table, if the pre-school exists and is provided

11. As an evaluation of Department of Social Services in Sri Lanka, the Director (a staff member during the Project) said in the interview, "If Japanese experts had notcome at that time, the establishment of the pre-schools in the schools for the deaf would have been delayed." The Director for Special Education (at the time) in theMinistry of Education, although not directly involved with the Project, commented that since the Pre-school Project had been implemented in the schools for the deaf,which were private special schools (see footnote 12) positioned outside of the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, the Project did not expand. The Directorfurther mentioned that he was aware of the importance of early special education at that time and the Ministry of Education had later attempted its implementation, buthad not continued.

12. The school for the deaf is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Social Services, and the Ministry of Education is involved only in terms of bearing the salary of theapproved teachers. Regarding schools for the deaf in Sri Lanka, refer to the following literature: H. Furuta and T. Yoshino, "Sri Lanka ni okeru Shiritsu Jizen Shisetsutoshite no Rou Gakko no Tokushitsu: 1980-nen Ikou Kyoikusho ni yori Donyu sareta Sogo Kyoiku tono Kanren de (Characteristic of School for the Deaf in Sri Lankaas the Private Charity Organization: In Relationship to the Integrated Education Introduced by Ministry of Education Since 1980)," Shinshin Shogaigaku Kenkyu(Disability Research), 22: 29-39, 1998.

13. For more details, refer to the following literature: H. Furuta, "Hatten Tojokoku no Chokaku Shogaiji Shoki Kyoiku heno Enjo ni kansuru Kenkyu: Waga Kuni no SriLanka ni taisuru Enjo wo Chushin ni (Study on Assistance for Early Special Education for Hearing-Impaired Children in the Developing Countries: Centered onJapan's assistance to Sri Lanka)," Doctoral Thesis, University of Tsukuba, 1999.

14. H. Sato op.cit.15. The Ministry of Education provides salary to teachers above the elementary education level only. In allocating teachers to the pre-school, the active involvement of

the principal at each school in persuading the Board, manipulation of the school's operation, etc., are required.

53


with class rooms, it is regarded as continued. If therehas been some expansion in training and managementcompared to 10 years ago, for example, the age of thetarget children has been lowered, then the school isregarded as developed.

As Table 3 shows, continuity of the Project has beenidentified in all the schools except School C, and de-velopment was identified only in Schools A and B,and Facility F. The development of the Project corre-sponds to the attitude of the institutions as mentionedin the previous section. In other words, Schools Aand B totally accepted the Project from the start, anddevelopment was identified 10 years after the Projectended.

Two factors are considered to have contributed tothis result. One factor is that the needs are well rec-ognized in the aid recipients. In Schools A and B, theteachers had already recognized the need for earlyspecial education through their daily practice of edu-cating at the time when the Japanese dispatched ex-perts started their task. Thus, this case suggests thatit is important for aid recipients to recognize the needsso that the acceptance of the project as well as thelong-term effect of the project can be enhanced.

The other factor is the stability of the school man-agement (financial condition, leadership of the prin-

cipal, etc.). Both Schools A and B, supported byChristian churches, were financially stable, and re-ceptive to foreign aid.

III Characteristics of Japan’s Assistancein the Pre-school Project

H. Furuta16 lists the following characteristics ofJapan's assistance in the initial stage of the Pre-schoolProject:

First, the Pre-school Project was provided to a fieldthat was rather difficult for Sri Lanka to develop alone.In Sri Lanka, pre-school education falls under nei-ther the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education, northat of the Ministry of Social Services. As it were, itis located in a valley of administrations. Althoughthe need for early special education of the hearing-impaired children was recognized by both Schools Aand B, it was very hard for them to attain a budget orto allocate teachers officially. Without any supportfrom aid agencies, this field would have been diffi-cult to start.

Secondly, there were personnel exchanges betweenJapan and Sri Lanka that created a readiness to re-ceive the aid. Teachers from Schools A and B were

16. H. Furuta, "Wagakuni no Sri Lanka Chokaku Shogai Kyoiku heno Enjo: Enjo no Kaishiki ni Mirareta Tokushitu (Japan's Assistance for Education for Hearing-Impaired Children in Sri Lanka's: Characteristics Observed at the Initial Stage of the Assistance)," Rou Kyoiku Kagaku (Science of Education for the Deaf), 41 (1): 35-48, 1999


54

invited to the International Congress on Education ofthe Deaf held in Tokyo in 1975. Through participat-ing in the conference, they developed a readiness topositively accept aid from Japan.

Third, this project was identified by a teacher, whowas a volunteer for an NGO. The Ministry of For-eign Affairs noticed a report written by the teacher,who was a volunteer for the Japan Silver Volunteers,on pre-school education in 1979. At that time, rightbefore the International Year of Disabled Persons, theJapanese government made an appeal for such assis-tance projects to other countries. Unlike Japan's re-quest -basis aid principle, in which a project startsupon receiving a request from an aid receiving coun-try, Japan took the initiative to make a proposal andimplemented the project.17

By examining Japan's process of deploying aid,18

as seen in the Pre-school Project, the following twocharacteristics became clear in this study.

First, the Pre-school Project was technical coop-eration provided by incumbent Japanese teachers, whodirectly gave training to teachers in Sri Lanka. Eachdispatched expert, rich in experience as a teacher inpost war Japan, though not sufficient in terms of lan-guage skill, implemented aid in the field of early spe-cial education in Sri Lanka, in which they have expe-rience and expertise. For the people involved in SriLanka, that is, the counterparts, it was practical andeasy to receive training from the dispatched expertswho, like them, were teachers. The relationship thatresulted between the counterparts and experts wasmore like a partnership.19 This technical cooperationby incumbent teachers will continue to contribute tothe personnel exchanges of both countries providedthat the problems with the support system, which willbe described in the next section, can be overcome.

Second, the Pre-school Project was support onwhich the Official Development Assitance (ODA) andindividual aid were united. Aid by individuals means,for example, a temporary donation activity by an in-dividual or a single group that is not reached at thelevel of an NGO. As a typical example of individualaid, the pre-school building in School A was con-structed through donations from Japanese individu-als who were living in Japan and in Sri Lanka, andfrom Japanese companies in Sri Lanka.20 It seemsthat the reason individual aid was actively carried outwas because the Japanese media often published ar-ticles concerning the Project motivated by the Inter-national Year of Disabled Persons as a backdrop.

IV Problems with the Pre-school Project

As mentioned previously, the commencement of aidfrom Japan for the education of disabled persons inSri Lanka depended largely on the performance ofone Japanese expert in the education of hearing-im-paired children. It can be said that the assistancestarted under an international slogan, but it is hard tosay that information about the recipient country wassufficiently examined before implementation. Aid todeveloping countries requires organizational supportby universities and research institutions in the donorcountry to continually support and supervise dis-patched experts by formulating aid policies and pro-viding knowledge and information about specializedfields in the recipient country. The Pre-school Project,however, did not receive continuous support from anyprofessional organizations. It has been pointed outthat Japan's educational cooperation is often con-ducted by individuals in a spontaneous response to asituation21, and that the Pre-school Project was simi-lar in this respect.

The first dispatched expert had hardly any infor-mation concerning Sri Lanka's education for disabledpersons and had to find out through daily coopera-tion activities. The three experts first introduced theJapanese framework for educating disabled personsto Sri Lanka, and then flexibly adopted new perspec-tives as they learned more about the actual situationin Sri Lanka. It took a substantial amount of time forthem to understand the administrative structure con-cerning disabled persons and the teacher training sys-tem, which mainly targeted incumbent teachers. Fur-thermore, although it is understandable that schoolsfor the deaf in Sri Lanka are private and positionedoutside public education, taking Japan's educationsystem into account, it must have been difficult forthe experts to understand why the Ministry of Educa-tion, which was promoting integrated education forthe disabled in the public school system, does not paythe least attention to the pre-school education inschools for the deaf outside of its jurisdiction. Be-cause the Japanese experts based their understandingof the situation on the Japanese system, misunder-standings and misjudgments concerning education forthe disabled in Sri Lanka occurred. These problemswere the result of the lack of a support system for thedispatched experts. Based on my experience as anexpert having been dispatched to Sri Lanka, I regretto say that such a system has still not been established.

17. From the interview of a staff member(at the time) in charge of expert assignment in JICA.18. See H. Furuta, "Hatten Tojokoku no Chokaku Shogaiji Shoki Kyoiku heno Enjo ni kansuru Kenkyu: Waga Kuni no Sri Lanka ni taisuru Enjo wo Chushin ni (Study

on Assistance for Early Special Education for Hearing-Impaired Children in the Developing Countries: Centered on Japan's assistance to Sri Lanka)," Doctoral Thesis,University of Tsukuba, 1999.

19. Some reports (for example, M. Hanmoto, "Teiki Gyomu Hokokusho (Periodic Operation Report)" No. 26, JICA internal document, pp. 4-5. 1982) suggest thatexperts were not just the ones to "teach" but were also in a position "to learn" by performance of the counterparts at the pre-school.

20. School for the Deaf, Ratmalana, Opening of Nippon House New Pre-School and the K G Building (Donated by Friends and Well Wishers in Japan), 1982.21. Science and International Affairs Bureau of Ministry of Education, Jidai ni Sokuou shita Kokusai Kyoiku Kyoryoku no Suishin ni tuite (On the Promotion of

International Educational Cooperation Geared to the Needs of the Times), Round-table Conference Report on the International Educational Cooperation Geared to theNeeds of the Times, 1996.

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Conclusion

This paper first examined the effect of aid in cases ofearly special education for hearing impaired childrenin Sri Lanka in the 1980s. The Pre-school Project wasevaluated positively by the people involved in bothcountries as well as by its beneficiaries. In compre-hensively evaluating the Pre-school Project, in lightof the fact that the target of the assistance was limitedto schools for the deaf, which are positioned outsidepublic education, it must be pointed out that the spin-off effects of the Project on education for the hearingimpaired in Sri Lanka as a whole was not very great.At the same time, we need to fully understand thesignificance of the fact that early special education,although a difficult field for Sri Lanka to developalone, was continuously implemented and developedin some of the schools for the deaf and in the pre-school for hearing impaired children. As a result, 10years after the Project ended, these institutions havegrown to play a central role.

Next, the effect of assistance was examined in termsof its social impact and long-term effect. It is clearthat in schools where the Project was "accepted", afoundation for sustainable management had been es-tablished and the need for early special education hadbeen recognized by the teachers; consequently, therewas a long-term effect. On the other hand, in schoolswhere the Project was "partially accepted," there wereno long-term effects such as developing a pre-schoolon their own. For future aid projects, it is necessaryto determine if the recipient organization is ready toaccept and utilize the aid, and if the need for the aidhas been sufficiently recognized or not.

The Pre-school Project was identified by a Japa-nese incumbent teacher who participated in an NGO.When you think about the low priority of the requestin a field of support for disabled persons from devel-

oping countries, the importance of project identifica-tion in this field on Japanese side should remain un-changed. To continue to formulate important projects,carefully planned personnel exchanges such as grass-root level interaction by NGOs and invitations to in-ternational conferences and seminars are needed. TheODA should financially support such activitiesworked out by NGOs and the like. In addition, torealize project objectives, the ODA needs to carry outawareness raising activities with the participatingcountries by hosting knowledge and information shar-ing seminars for people concerned with the educa-tion of the disabled in aid recipient countries and thosein charge of related agencies.

In order to expand the activities of dispatched ex-perts and members of the JOCV, including incum-bent teachers, it is urgent to establish a specializedorganization that accumulates experience and knowl-edge through past aid activities, and provides sup-port to local activities. This specialized organizationshould play a central role in conducting sufficientpreliminary studies and research in the education ofdisabled persons in each country and accumulatinginformation so that Japan can provide more effectiveassistance in the field of educating the disabled. Forthis purpose, NGOs and private citizens should beincorporated.

This study could not examine the content of theearly special education of the hearing impaired chil-dren to which Japan transferred technology. The ap-proach that Japan developed after World War II forearly special education was based on the utilizationof hearing aids and involved parents (mothers) in train-ing. How this approach to early special educationhas been accepted in Sri Lanka, whose situation isdifferent from that of Japan, has to be studied furtherand a deeper examination of the content of technol-ogy transfers is required.

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Attempt at Community Participation inJapan's Grant Aid Cooperation

*This article was first published in Japanese in Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu Vol 16 No.1 (April 2000). 1. Meteorological data from the Meteorological Survey Department

CASE STUDY

Attempt at Community Participation in Japan's Grant AidCooperation

— Case Study of Water Supply Project in Satellite Area of Lusaka —

Naoki MORI Socio-Economist, Japan Tecno Co., Ltd.

Yuji MARUOJICA Senior Advisor

Ichiro TAKAMATSUExecutive vice president, Japan Tecno Co., Ltd.

Zambia's capital city, Lusaka is formed of two contrasting areas. The central area of the city was builtduring its colonization based on a systematic city planning. The surrounding areas called "compounds"were spontaneously developed as a result of the influx of the people from rural areas after the indepen-dence of the country. The George Complex, whose population is approximately 110,000, about four timesthe average density of Lusaka, is one of such surrounding areas. This is the area targeted for the watersupply project under Japan's Grant Aid Program. Most of the residents belong to the low-income groupengaged in the informal sector.

In the early 1980s and early 1990s, water supply facilities were constructed twice in the George Com-plex with the assistance of the World Bank and the European Union. Each time, however, either because ofdistrust of authority by residents or because of increased dissatisfaction over instability in the water supply,water supply facilities were vandalized by residents and disabled.

The project, since its inauguration in May 1994, has been implemented in four phases of construction.The fourth phase of construction was completed in March 2000. This case study shows how communityparticipation was promoted by Japanese consultants during the first and the second phases where they tookcharge of the basic design study and the construction supervision.

The promotion of community participation had three specific goals as targets to accomplish: the eradi-cation of vandalism, the establishment of a self-supporting accounting system for the water supply system,and the cooperation of residents in operating and maintaining it. In the first phase, because of limited timeand because content of the message to be conveyed to residents was clear, an enlightenment approach wasadopted. In the second phase, with the cooperation of the international NGO, CARE, CBO (community-based organization) training was incorporated. This method was developed by CARE based on the PRA(participatory rapid appraisal) approach to promote resident participation.

The enlightenment approach was effective in improving payment of the water bill, because it broughtabout a change in consciousness by appealing to each individual resident. This change is quick, but lacklongevity. As a result, the approach has to be repeated from time to time.

The PRA approach, on the other hand, emphasizes the capacity building of community leaders, encour-aging them to develop leadership in their respective areas. The PRA was effective in eradicating vandalismand promoting cooperation among residents in operating and maintaining the facilities, because it fermentsthe residents' collective responsibility and organized action.

Introduction

Lusaka, the capital city of the Republic of Zambia, islocated on a flat plateau about 1,300 meters abovesea level, in an inland area. The city, in a dry savanna

climate zone, has an annual average rainfall of about870 mm (1973 to 1993) - 90% of which occurs dur-ing the rainy season, from November to March.1 Asin other African countries, a unipolar concentrationof population into the metropolitan area is noticeable,


58

and the population of Lusaka, as of 1995, is estimatedto be about 1.6 million.2

Roughly, Lusaka consists of two contrasting typesof areas, one of which was built up during Zambia'speriod of colonization based on systematic city plan-ning, and the other of which, surrounding areas, de-veloped spontaneously through the concentrating ofpopulation in the metropolitan area after the indepen-dence of the country in 1964 (Figure 1). These sur-rounding areas were originally illegally occupied, bysquatters who came in from the rural areas, but theareas were incorporated into Lusaka city in and after1970, and gradually became recognized as formalresidential areas. In these peri-urban areas of Lusakamany living environment improvement projects wereconducted, and improvement of infrastructure wasattempted, to some extent. The city of Lusaka callsthese surrounding areas "compounds," and presentlyLusaka has 33 such compounds, in which an estimatedone million people reside.

The George Complex, northwest of Lusaka, is thearea targeted for the water supply project plannedunder Grant Aid Cooperation from Japan, and theComplex contains seven separate compounds (Fig-ure 2). The area targeted for the project is about 4.8km2, and the population, as of 1993, was about110,000.3 The population density of this region is

very high - about four times the average density ofLusaka city - and most of the residents belong to thelow-income group and mostly work in the so-calledinformal sector.

In the George Complex, water supply facilities wereconstructed through financing from the World Bankin the early 1980s, as part of a housing environmentimprovement project targeting areas that were recog-nized as formal residential areas.4 The water supplyfacilities were constructed, extending the water sup-ply system of Lusaka city, and water is suppliedthrough public faucets. In the mid-80s, however, thesefacilities were disabled by vandalism by residents, dueto the unstable, intermittent nature of water supplyservice, as well as the system's immature maintenanceand management, including a fee collection system.In the early 90s, a water supply facility project basedon financial assistance from the EU began, and fiveboreholes fitted with a hand pump were constructed.5

However, the completed facilities were destroyed, andmaterials were stolen, by residents who thought theauthorities would force them to move in order to se-cure construction sites for the facilities. As a result,the project was brought to a standstill.6

As the traditional water source, there are many shal-low wells two to five meters deep, which were exca-vated without timbering, in most areas of the George

2. Based on data of the Central Statistic Office, 1993; The annual average population increase rate from 1983 to 1992 in Lusaka city was 6.2%. 3. Based on data of the Central Statistic Office, 1993. 4. Lusaka City Upgrading Scheme. 5. Pilot Project under Social Action Programme George Compound, Lusaka. 6. Lusaka City Council, Project Completion Report: Pilot Project under Social Action Programme George Compound, Lusaka, p15-20, 1991.

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Complex. Many of these shallow wells dry up in thedry season, but in the rainy season, the undergroundwater level reaches almost to the earth's surface, pro-viding a considerable amount of water, so most resi-dents have depended solely on these shallow wells asa water source. However, the majority of householdsin the George Complex have pit latrines, excavating,which were latrines excavated without timbering,outside their homes, resulting in contamination of thewater in the shallow wells with human waste. As aresult, the George Complex had an extremely highincidence rate of cholera and other water-borne dis-eases, even compared with other surrounding areasof Lusaka (Table 1).

The consultants, who were in charge of this projectfrom the stage of basic design study to the supervi-sion of construction stage, developed community par-ticipation activities in cooperation with the Lusaka

City Council and the Lusaka Water and SewerageCompany, based on lessons learned from past mis-takes. Three specific major goals were set as follows.

1) Preventing vandalism2) Establishing a self-supporting accounting sys-

tem for the water supply system3) Active community participation in operating and

maintaining the system.This project was implemented in four phases, and

all the phases were completed in March 2000.This case study reports community participation

activities in the first phase (construction began in May1994; operation began in July 1995) and the secondphase (construction began in March 1995; operationbegan in July 1996).

I Residents in the George Complex

As to the composition of tribes in the George Com-plex, the Nyanja tribe (38%) and the Bemba (27%)make up the majority, and six tribes, including theTonga (7%) and the Lozi (1.9%), exist as minorities,as in other compounds of Lusaka city. Most of theresidents in the George Complex are Christian: 33.2%are Protestant, 29.0% Catholic, and 20.1% Pentecos-tal; others are Muslim (0.9%), Hindu (0.5%), and oth-ers (new religions, etc.: 16.3%).7

According to the 1990 census, the primary educa-

7. JICA/LUDHMT Primary Health Care Project, Report on the Baseline Survey, p5-15, 1998.


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tion enrollment rate in all of Zambia is 96.4%. Thereare six elementary schools in the George Complex,but each lacks sufficient school buildings and teach-ers, considering the number of students, and the pri-mary education enrollment rate in the Complex is only56% - far below the national average. Seventeen per-cent of the residents in the George Complex have re-ceived no education at all.8

Most residents in the George Complex earn theirliving in the informal sector, such as daily employ-ment in building and road construction, retail sales offoods and daily-use goods at street stalls, and pro-duction of sun-dried bricks. According to the resultsof a primary health care survey conducted by JICA,the monthly income level per resident is 100,000Kwacha or less, for just over 50% of the populationin the Complex; between 100,000 and 200,000Kwacha, for 25%, and over 200,000 Kwacha, forabout 25% ($1 = 1980 Kwacha).9

The residents of the Complex are people who cameto it from different villages in various areas, and resi-dents' mobility is considerably high. As a result, thecommunity consciousness among residents is weak.Naturally, there is no formation of a hierarchy-likecommunity centered on village heads, which is char-acteristic of Zambia rural villages. There are no es-tablished ethics, regulations, and punishments withinthe community, which were formed traditionallybased on regional historical and cultural backgrounds.Also, the George Complex has almost no commonlyowned assets managed by the community, and prac-tically no volunteer work or events aimed at benefit-ing the entire community are conducted. As such,there are not many factors to help foster residents'community consciousness.

In compound areas, including the George Complex,destruction of public facilities by community resi-

dents, called vandalism, is rampant. The generalcauses are considered to be as follows: (1) aiming tosteal parts and materials of the facilities, (2) politicalbackground, (3) business rivalry, and (4) residents'social stress, distrust, etc. According to an opinionsurvey conducted by the authors and colleagues, re-garding the past vandalism that occurred in the GeorgeComplex, remarkable distrust residents have towardmunicipal authorities lies at the base of such behav-ior. In addition, poor quality of the facilities, unreli-able service, unfair fee collection, and other causesof social anxiety can be concluded as the main causesof vandalism.

II Facility Plan

This project is to construct an independent water sup-ply system only for the George Complex, using thedeep-underground aquifer called the Lusaka dolomitelayer, which provides sufficient water near the targetregion as a water source. The planned facilities are awater supply system that consists of a borehole aspumping equipment, water-conveyance equipment,water-distribution equipment, including a sterilizationdevice and an elevated water tank, and public faucetsequipped with a wash area (Figure 3).

In this plan, the George Complex (excluding theLilanda compound, where infrastructure establish-ment is relatively progressing) was divided into eightwater supply areas, to make each population almostequal, and a priority order was attached to each areabased on the degree of urgency, and the plan is to beimplemented in four phases (Table 2). In each watersupply area, a borehole, an elevated water tank, andoperation and maintenance facilities were established,and each works as an independent water supply sys-

8. Ibid. 9. Ibid.

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tem.In designing the facilities, the unit water-supply

volume per person per day was regarded as 35 liters,as determined by the Lusaka Water and SewerageCompany, and the target year was set as 2003. A pub-lic faucet was to be installed for about every 50 to 60households (5.5 persons per household, on average),and the location was determined based on discussionwith community residents. Each public faucet hasfour taps, and a laundry facility with four basins wasbuilt at each water supply point. Signboards werealso installed on the public faucets, to convey variousinformation to residents. In addition, a water meterwas attached to each public faucet, to monitor andmanage the water volume used.

III Operation and Maintenance Management System

As there were no offices or branches of the LusakaWater and Sewerage Company in the George Com-plex, a George Office, staffed by personnel in chargeof operation and maintenance management of thewater supply system, was established at a place wherea borehole was constructed in the first phase. Also,an Office branch was installed at a site where an el-evated water tank was to be built in each water sup-ply section. The George Office consists of an engi-neering division, which is in charge of operation, in-spection, repair, etc., of water supply facilities; anaccounting division, which is in charge of registra-tion of water facility users, fee collection, and account-ing; and a service division, which is in charge of ac-tivities to promote community participation and com-munication with residents.

In order for residents in the area to access a publicfaucet, each household must register at the George

Office, obtain a registration card, and pay a regulatedmonthly fee. When a registered resident pays a wa-ter fee at the beginning of a month, the Office marksthe registration card for that month. Residents mustbring a registration card with a mark that proves pay-ment, each time they go to a public faucet to drawwater. At each public faucet, persons called "tap lead-ers," who were selected by residents in the area, at-tend the site during water supply hours, and checkthe registration cards that residents bring. For eacharea of a public faucet, two tap leaders are selected(at least one of which is a woman).

Water supply hours are determined based on dis-cussion among tap leaders and residents in the re-spective areas. The most general periods of watersupply are twice daily: from 6 to 8 a.m., and from 3to 5 p.m. During water supply hours, tap leaders un-lock the faucets, and during water supply, they in-struct residents to keep order and cleanliness in thesurroundings. Residents can only get water duringthe water supply hours when faucets are unlocked bytap leaders. Initially, tap leaders voluntarily workedfor no remuneration, but since August 1998, restitu-tion has been paid based on the number of house-holds that pay water fees, aimed at providing incen-tive for people to serve in leadership roles.10

Regarding registration and payment of water fees,the George Office receives them during operationhours (closed on holidays), and, during the first fivedays of each month, each branch also receives pay-ment of water fees. Monthly water fees were set,based on discussions with community leaders follow-ing estimation of operation and maintenance manage-ment costs, at 1,000 Kwacha (about 1.05 dollars) perhousehold, at the beginning of operation in July 1995;at 1,500 Kwacha (about 1.16 dollars), from July 1996at the beginning of the second phase operation; andat 2,500 Kwacha (about 1.27 dollars), beginning inAugust 1998.11

IV Community Participation in the First Phase

1. Enlightenment ApproachAs the first phase project, construction of facilities inthe first water supply area began in September 1994,and water supply service was started in July 1995.Activities to promote participation by residents in thearea started in April 1994, prior to construction. Astime that could be spent on the first-phase activitieswas relatively short, and it was necessary to establisha form of community participation by the time watersupply service started, an enlightenment approach was

10. 500 Kwacha was paid per household that paid11. At respective time points, the exchange rate was 952 Kwacha to the U.S. dollar (1995), 1,298 Kwacha to the dollar (1996), and 1,970 Kwacha to the dollar (1998);

According to the results of an opinion survey of community residents conducted (in October 1998) by the George Office staff and CARE, about 90% of the residentssaid they could pay the established water usage fees. The monthly income per community resident was 100,000 Kwacha or less, for slightly more than 50% of thepopulation, and 100,000 to 200,000 Kwacha, for 25% of the population (1 dollar = 1,980 Kwacha) - most people in this zone have incomes in these ranges. Theemployed population per household in the George Complex is usually two or more persons, so also from the household income aspect, the set water usage fees areconsidered to be in payable ranges.


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adopted. In this project, the content of the messageto be conveyed to residents was clear, based on expe-riences in past projects, and so was the form of com-munity participation. Therefore, it was judged thatan enlightenment approach could be effective in con-veying the objective of the project to residents.

The activities over time are as follows.

1) Explanation on the project

To obtain agreement from various fields on thecontent of the project, and cooperation in the project,explanation was given regarding the background, con-tent, scope, implementation period of the project, androles of respective agencies and community organi-zations in implementation, etc., first to city council-ors who were selected from the target area, city coun-cil staff, and representatives of community residents.Thereafter, through their cooperation, explanation ofthe same content was given, via public announcement(by megaphone) to all residents in the water supplysection, by broadcasting on public streets and squaresin the section. Explanation was given to the residentsin the area, at different places, spending several days,so that information could be spread throughout thecommunity, and leaflets in both the local languageand English were distributed to participating residents,so that information could reach each place accurately.

2) Identification of community leaders

During the above-described explanation to resi-dents, they were informed that a meeting to discussdetails of the plan would be held at a designated placeon a certain date, and residents (especially women)who would actively participate in this plan as volun-teers were requested to attend the meeting. The meet-ing was conducted on a holiday morning at an elemen-tary school in the area, and about 70 resident volun-teers attended. Half of the attendants were women.In so-called compound areas, including the GeorgeComplex, women are not socially or culturally re-stricted in matters of speech and behavior, and manyof the women who attended the meeting actively ex-changed opinions. Also, most of the selected tap lead-ers were women, and many of the women's opinionswere reflected in the management methods (determi-nation of open hours of faucets, etc.) of common fau-cets and washing areas.

3) Enlightenment activities toward communityleaders

Enlightenment activities for the above-mentionedresident volunteers were conducted by holding regu-lar weekly meetings. The meetings were held to en-hance their consciousness regarding causes of fail-ures in water supply projects and problems of the

community, using serial pictures (picture-card shows),based on case studies on past water supply projectsand information from community residents. The re-sults of similar problems occurring in this project weremade visual using serial pictures, thus making theimportance of such problems re-recognized. Afterthat, solutions and opinions for such problems werespecified, to obtain residents' support, and this pro-cess was repeated. These activities strongly appealedto the need for organizing residents, the need for resi-dent management of public faucets, thorough pay-ment of fees, and reform of community residents'consciousness to prevent vandalism. At the same time,study tours were conducted, visiting similar projectsin other compounds, during which opinions were ex-changed with representatives of the regions con-cerned, and their experiences were listened to.

4) Population / household surveys, selection oflocations of common faucets

Together with the above-mentioned communityleaders, population and household surveys in the tar-get area were conducted. These surveys were con-ducted to accurately grasp the population of the tar-get area, and to compile a household list to be usedby community leaders to ask each household for pay-ment of fees. In addition, site surveys to allocatepublic faucets were conducted, with the participationof community leaders, and the locations were decidedafter confirming the views of residents in the area.

5) Enlightenment activities toward communityresidents

At the places where public faucets were plannedto be built (49 places), enlightenment activities to-ward residents in respective areas were conducted,through cooperation by community leaders. The con-tent of the activities was the same as that for commu-nity leaders, but the tools for the activities consistedof both serial pictures and "drama" presentations. Thedramas were original creations of community lead-ers using the content of serial pictures and were wellreceived by residents in all areas.12 Problems werepresented in the drama stories, and discussion withresidents was conducted regarding what should bedone, as the responsibility of residents in the areas,and residents were made to recognize the importanceof their paying operation and management fees.

6) Formation of the Water Committee, Water Sub-Committees, and Tap Committees

Almost at the same period as start of the construc-tion, the Water Committee was formed. The watersupply area was divided into five zones by residents

12. The "drama" story is as follows: Facilities were built and residents got water, but because residents stopped paying fees, electricity was discontinued and pumpsstopped working, salary of staff of the water company could not be paid, repair of facilities could not be done, and residents were seen frustrated, at a loss as to whatto do, standing in front of the facilities that had stopped providing water.

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themselves, and for each zone, two representativeswere selected as Committee members, through vot-ing by community leaders. Committee members be-came tap leaders in their respective areas of residence,and with their cooperation, tap leaders of all the pub-lic faucets in every zone were selected. And in eachzone, a Water Sub-Committee, consisting of 10 tapleaders, was formed (Figure 4). Regarding roles, theWater Committee made activity plans to promotecommunity participation, based on discussion withLusaka City Council, Lusaka Water and SewerageCompany, and consultants on operation supervision,while Water Sub-Committees were to carry out theplans. The Water Committee fed back the results ofthe activities of Water Sub-Committees, in discussionswith related organizations, to be reflected in activityplans.

While construction was proceeding, regular discus-sion with the Water Committee and enlightenmentactivities for residents were continued. In May 1995,before start of water supply service, Tap Committees,consisting of tap leaders and residents in respectivezones concerned, were formed. Tap leaders are incharge of management of public faucets, checking ofuser fee payments, urging of paying such fees, dis-cussion with the community and determination re-garding faucet opening hours, etc.

7) Preliminary registration campaign for people whowish to use water supply facilities

Prior to the start of water supply service, a pre-

liminary registration campaign was conducted forpeople who wished to use water supply facilities,through cooperation by the Water Committee, and alist of users (customers) was compiled. This userslist was given to the Water Committee and tap lead-ers, for use in managing users, in activities to pro-mote paying of fees, etc.

8) Conclusion of a partnership agreement

After the start of water supply service, in order toclarify the share of roles of the Water and SewerageCompany and a community organization, discussionbetween both parties was conducted, and a partner-ship agreement was concluded between the GeorgeOffice and the Water Committee. According to thisagreement, the George Office was made responsiblefor operation and maintenance management of watersupply systems in major parts, and the Water Com-mittee was made responsible for mainly managementof public faucets and washing areas. As to settingfees and determination of project plans to promotecommunity participation, both parties were to workthese out cooperatively. The agreement specifies ex-penses born by the two parties for Water Committee'sactivities to promote community participation, as wellas regular meetings to foster the partnership.

9) Establishment of the Service Division in theGeorge Office

Accompanying the start of water supply service,the Service Division, which constantly provides a li-


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aison function toward residents, including PR activi-ties, and receiving of residents' complaints and re-quests, was established within the George Office.Personnel were temporarily transferred from the Com-munity Development Division of Lusaka City Coun-cil. In the first phase, one staff person, and in thesecond phase or afterward, three persons, remainedon duty in the Service Division. This Division con-ducts regular meetings with the Water Committee andTap Committees, follow-up of activities, etc.

10) Self-assessment activities

Three months after the start of water supply ser-vice, a workshop for Water Committee members, tapleaders, and community residents was held, to con-duct self-assessment in their activities. In the work-shop, the PRA (participatory rapid appraisal) methodwas adopted, and problems concerning operation andmaintenance management of facilities after the startof water supply service were confirmed by the par-ticipants. And the correlation between cause and re-sults was visually analyzed, and solutions weresearched for, to be reflected in future activity andproject plans.

11) Payment promotion campaign

Since the water fee payment rate (rate of the num-ber of households that paid water fees in the total ofall households in the zone) was low in the public fau-cet zones, a payment promotion campaign, using thetool of "drama" presentation, was intensively con-ducted. Also, a PR car with a loudspeaker systemrepeatedly circulated the entire zones to extend theimportance of paying fees was broadcast.

2. Results of Activities to Promote Communityparticipation

Since the outset of the project up to now, there has

been no vandalism at all, which was the major con-cern from the beginning, so the project can be said tohave accomplished a great achievement. Regardingthe point of residents' active participation in main-tenance management activities, weakness of the Wa-ter Com-mittee's activities, tap leaders' insufficientabilities, and lack of communication between authori-ties and community organizations, were pointed out,and further promotion of activities is considered nec-essary.

The residents' water fee payment rate is maintainedhigh for the first seven months, from July, when ser-vice started, to January of the next year, because aself-supporting accounting system was promoted(Figure 5).13 However, from the following February,fee payment rates gradually decreased. It is specu-lated that this occurred for two reasons: gradually adecreasing interest of residents in the project, andrecovery of the water level of shallow wells startingin the middle of the rainy season. However, as a re-sult of another water fee payment promotion cam-paign, which was conducted toward residents in Juneand July, there was a trend of improvement in thepayment rate, though it was temporary. Judging fromthese, the enlightenment activities show some imme-diate effectiveness, but they have to be conducted re-peatedly as they rarely last long.

V Residents' Participation Activitiesin the Second Phase

1. PRA ApproachThe second-phase construction of the project startedin March 1995, targeting the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th watersupply sections (Figure 2), and water supply servicestarted in July 1996, when a residents' participationsystem was established. Activities to promote resi-

13. The payment rate in August was 130%, and the payment rate in December and January of the next year was 100%; these are speculated to be due to registration andjoining of people from outside the water supply section.

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dents' participation in the second-phase target sectionsstarted in August 1994. In the second phase, com-munity participation activities were to be implementedthrough cooperation with CARE, which is an inter-national NGO that conducts a program to developresidents' capacity in target areas. The water supplyproject was incorporated as one of the elements ofthe program, and the CBO (community-based orga-nization) training method they were implementingwas applied. CBO is a method developed by CARE,consisting of about 20 sessions that have been madeinto manuals, and it is characterized by frequent us-age of the PRA method.

The aim of the PRA method is to improve commu-nity residents' abilities to find and analyze needs andproblems in regional social development, and to en-hance their abilities to find solutions and take actionstoward them on their own. Its final aim is to developresidents' self-governing abilities (empowerment).Among activities to enhance community residents'consciousness, there are group discussion, brain-storming, mapping of community forms, mapping ofeach group's access to and control of common re-sources within communities, priority ranking andscoring of development subjects, preparation of prob-lem/cause-effect trees, "threat and counter-threat," andusage of visualized maps, diagrams, and tables.

1) Identification of community leaders

In the second phase, community leaderswere identified by focusing on the people (especiallywomen) who were already conducting some kind ofcommunity activities, such as Christian church ac-tivities and PTAs in the same sections. From amongthese community leaders, volunteers were collected,and a task force team was formed.

2) Capacity building training for community leaders

The above-mentioned CBO capacity building train-ing was given to the community leaders who wereformed into a task force team. This training consistsof how to communicate with community residents,how to take leadership, the importance of commu-nity organizations and self-help efforts, constructionof partnerships in development, participatory moni-toring and evaluation, etc.

3) Reorganization of the Water Committee

Prior to the start of the second-phase water supplyservice, a new Water Committee was formed by thecommunity leaders in the first-phase service area andthose in the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th water supply sections,where new service will start.

4) Population / household surveys, and allocation ofpublic faucets

As in the first phase, population / household sur-veys and positioning of public faucets were imple-

mented in the target areas, in cooperation with com-munity leaders. In the second phase, the method ofmapping by community leaders was introduced. Theydraw rough maps of their respective areas, and addpublic facilities, such as roads, existing shallow wells,schools, and churches, to complete the maps. Next,each map was voluntarily divided, and in each zone,population / household surveys were conducted, andthe results of each zone were written in the map. Thenumbers of public faucets according to populationsof respective zones were decided through discussionwith community leaders. Thereafter, community lead-ers brought the maps back to their zones, and the po-sitions of public faucets were decided through con-sultation with the residents there.

5) Selection of tap leaders, formation ofTap Committees, and training

Through cooperation with community leaders whoalready completed CBO training and learned the PRAmethod, community participation was promoted inthe areas where respective public faucets were plannedto be built, and selection of tap leaders, and forma-tion of Tap Committees were also conducted. First,the date and time of a meeting were informed tohouseholds in the neighborhood, in order to have asmany households as possible attend, and then a brief-ing was conducted. Next, as a tool of the PRA, "threatand counter-threat," was implemented with residents.This was to confirm anticipated problems (vandal-ism and nonpayment of fees), analyze the results ofthe problems, search for causes of problems, and leadto solutions. As solutions, selection of tap leadersand formation of Tap Committees are included. Se-lected tap leaders receive the same capacity buildingtraining as other community leaders, and then formWater Sub-Committees.

6) Preliminary registration campaign for people whowhish to use water supply facilities

As in the first phase, prior to the start of water sup-ply service, a campaign to collect residents wishingto register was conducted, and users' lists were com-plied.

2. Results of Community Participation ActivitiesAlso in the second-phase sections, no single case ofvandalism occurred, as in the first phase. The factthat water supply service is constantly working asresidents expect may somewhat contribute to that, butit is speculated to have been greatly influenced bythe community participation activities, which en-hanced residents' consciousness. Further, as a resultof community participation activities, the fact thatpublic faucets came to be managed properly has pre-vented residents' complaints, and this can be anotherreason for no vandalism.

Presently, however, as to the water fee payment rate,which is regarded as an important index of resident


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participation in this project, expected results are notseen. The fee payment rates was around 50% for twoyears after July 1996, when the second-phase watersupply service started.14 The break-even point of thewater fee payment, that is, to enable self-supportingaccounting, including the cost for future renewal offacilities when the entire system is in operation in thefourth phase, was calculated to be 65%. In order toestablish self-supporting accounting for this watersupply system in the future, advocacy to residentsmust be further strengthened. Repeated implemen-tation of enlightenment campaigns, whose validitywas proved in the first-phase activities, is also ex-pected to be effective.

The second-phase community participation activi-ties have been conducted with emphasis on the ca-pacity building of community leaders. The qualitiesof respective leaders influenced largely the differencesin the level of residents' understanding regarding theimportance of community participation in operatingand managing maintenance of facilities. In some ar-eas there is a large gap in consciousness between lead-ers and general residents, and it is sometimes diffi-cult to arise residents' interest. Therefore, implemen-tation of capacity building training for leaders as wellas conduction of periodic re-election of leaders arerequired to activate leadershio.

Conclusion

In a society with no hierarchy-like structure and littlebondage among neighbors, as in the George Com-plex, it is difficult to organize residents. In order toask residents to adopt social norms and assume jointresponsibilities, such as eradication of vandalism and

14. According to sections, the rates are about 38% in the second water supply section, and about 65% in the third and fourth areas. The rate is especially low in the secondsection, because there are many shallow wells (about three quarters of people in the section own shallow wells), and many residents there still use unsanitary waterfrom these shallow wells. The income pattern of many residents in the George Complex shows an urban-type trend, showing little change with the seasons, so it isconsidered that people's seasonal change of income levels causes little fluctuation of the seasonal water fee payment rates.

15. In the George Complex, where conventionally there have been few systematic activities by community residents, and where leadership of community leaders hasbeen weak, fostering of capable leaders is work that will require time. As tap leaders are selected by election by community residents, their ability is highly likely tobe displayed. Actually, many tap leaders selected by election have displayed leadership, but some neglect daily activities, causing community residents to complain.To activate leadership, periodic re-election of tap leaders is effective, and it is also necessary to continually conduct capacity building training. Also, implementationof participatory monitoring activities by community residents and tap leaders will also be effective.

16. It generally happens, in many projects, that community residents initially have a high participation consciousness, due to expectations toward a project, but theconsciousness tends to decline as time passes, and this tendency has also been seen in this project. The water fee payment rate has been decreasing over time,following enlightenment activities. In the George Complex and other compounds, population mobility is high, and reform and stabilization of community residents'consciousness takes time, so it is necessary to continually implement enlightenment activities to improve participants' consciousness.

cooperation in operation / maintenance managementactivities, and in order to expect their systematic co-operation, it is important to foster community lead-ers, and the contribution of their leadership is signifi-cant. Therefore, the second-phase method, whichused PRA, emphasized community leaders' capacitybuilding, and is considered effective for promotingcommunity residents' systematic participation. How-ever, in order for community leaders to fully performtheir leadership to general residents in respectivezones, sufficient time and further capacity building isrequired.15

On the other hand, in order to reform residents'consciousness by appealing the relation between wa-ter and diseases to individual residents and improvefee payment rate, the enlightenment approach is effi-cient, as it was seen in the first-phase. But the effi-cacy does not last long, so repeated implementationis necessary.16 In the future, both approaches shouldbe simultaneously used according to the purposes, andthe promotion of community participation should becontinually conducted, as is also true for the first-phase and second-phase sections.

ReferenceCentral Statistic Office: Selected Socio-Economic

Indicators, Zambia, 1997.Central Statistic Office: Demographic Projection

1990-2015, Zambia, 1995.Lusaka City Council: Settlement Information Chart,

1998.Schlyter, A: Women Householders and Housing

Strategies: The Case of George, Zambia, The Na-tional Swedish Institute for Building Research,Sweden, 1988.

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Potential of Cost-Sharing Implementation Contributing tothe Sustainability of Training Programs

NOTE


— Cost-Sharing Experiment by Trainees in

the Social Forestry Training Project in Kenya —

Hiromi YAMAUCHI Former JICA Expert

Social-forestry training undertaken in Kenya largely depends on economic assistance from donor coun-tries, and a key determinant of whether the training continues after the assistance has ended is to securetraining expenses. The Kitui training center had been conducting training courses targeted at grassrootslevel in the Kenya/Japan Social Forestry Training Project. In 1996, a year prior to the project termination,the center began an experiment lasting for three training courses, asking trainees to bear their own travelingexpenses in order to secure the training expenses after the project was completed. In the past, the travelingcost had been borne by Japan. As a result, it became clear that cost-sharing which urges individual traineesto afford their travel expenses might be inappropriate in terms of the amount of the burden and possibledisaccord between those who were burdened and those who benefited from the training. However, it alsobecame evident that cost-sharing might be feasible by requesting the organizations involved to take on theresponsibility of covering the travel expenses of their trainees, although this would be limited to courses inwhich the organization concerned was able to bear them. Thus, the measures were effective in reducingexpenditures but insufficient in securing sustainable training programs. It is suggested that it may bepossible to implement cost-sharing and reduce the expenditures by reviewing the items and costs to bechanged and reforming the curricula to be more beneficial and directly related to the income generatingactivities of the individual training.

This cost-sharing experiment was originally aimed at reducing costs. However, in due course, it becameapparent that it was also effective in arousing awareness of recipient countries of training expenses, andenhancing participation from the truly motivated trainees when they had to bear part of the costs, whichimproved the effectiveness of the training. On the other hand, there was a concern that the introduction ofcost-sharing might make it more difficult for women and the economically underprivileged to participatein the training even though they were the primary targets of the training. Therefore, in cost-sharing, it isnecessary to weigh its purpose and effects, and seek the most suitable path of implementation for the casesin question.

Introduction

Forest resources in Kenya have been declining due tothe increasing demand for farmland to cope with thepopulation growth and the increased demand for for-estry products such as firewood. Although semi-aridareas, which account for 80% of its land, have beenignored in development so far, they have attracted theattention of the Kenyan government in recent years.The government plans to get local residents or com-munities to manage the natural resources in these ar-eas.1 To manage the forest resources in these areas,

social forestry - local residents planting trees on theirfarmland to encourage self-sufficiency in forestryproducts - is considered an important activity.

The Social Forestry Training Project in Kenya(SFTP) commenced in 1987 with a counterpart insti-tution, the Kenya Forestry Research Institute(KEFRI), after a two–year preparation phase. It de-veloped tree planting technologies in semi-arid areasand conducted training in social forestry over 10 yearsthrough its first and second phases. The KEFRI Kituiregional training center was located 170km east ofNairobi, the capital city, in Kitui District in the East-

* This article was first published in Japanese in Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu Vol.15 No.2 (Octobrt 1999).1. Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, Kenya Forestry Master Plan Development Programs, Nairobi, pp102-110, 1999.


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ern Province, which was a semi-arid area with an an-nual rainfall of 400-750mm.2 The center providedtraining courses in social forestry to the grass rootspeople, that is, farmers, primary school teachers andfront-line extension staff residing in semi-arid regionsin the Eastern Province who practiced social forestry.The training courses covered not only the core sub-jects of seedling production and tree planting andtending techniques, but also subjects related to socialforestry in a broad sense, such as soil erosion controland saving firewood. Although 80 courses were heldand about two thousands trainees were trained throughits first and second phases, the training was not suffi-cient for social forestry to take root in the regions.Hence, it was necessary for KEFRI to continue train-ing the grass roots people after the termination of theproject. To make the training courses sustainable, thefollowing requirements were necessary: the role oftraining activities in KEFRI had to be clarified; thehuman resources, including counterparts, who ac-quired the skills of managing the training courses hadto be kept; and training funds had to be secured.Among the requirements, securing training fundsseemed to be a key factor for the continuation of thetraining in the situation at that time. Hence, in 1996,a year prior to the project termination, the projectbegan a cost-sharing experiment as one of the mea-sures to secure training expenses, asking the traineesto bear a part of the training expenses borne by Japanin the past.

Cost-sharing by trainees was not common inprojects related to social forestry conducted in Kenya,and in many other African countries, the situationseems to be similar. This paper will review the pro-cess and the implementation of the cost-sharing ex-periment and show the results of the survey, whichwill demonstrate the reality of trainees bearing thecost of transportation and outline their opinions onthe cost-sharing experiment. This paper will also dis-cuss the feasibility and effectiveness of cost-sharingand make recommendations for the future.

I Current Expenditure on Training

Until now, training expenses have been shared byKEFRI and Japan. KEFRI bears the expenses for elec-tricity, trainees’ food and accommodation and Japanfor trainees’ transportation costs, an honorarium, andtraining materials. The contribution of the Japaneseside has been provided by Japan International Coop-eration Agencies (JICA) to cover the training expensesfor the mid-class technicians. This budget wasplanned to decrease 20 percent every year to facili-tate recipient countries becoming more self-reliant by

2. Hiroshi Masuko, Forestry International Cooperation in Africa: Significance and Activities of Social Forestry Training Project in Kenya, Japan International CooperationAgency, pp77-78, 1996.

3. Hiromi Yamauchi, Proceeding of KEFRI/JICA Conference on Social Forestry and Tree Planting Technology in Semi Arid Lands, Nairobi, p177, 1997.

gradually shifting the financial responsibility to them.However, the shift of the financial burden to recipi-ent countries was not very smooth with regards to thetraining expenses directly related to managing thecourse. Table-1 shows the training expenses paid byKEFRI and Japan in a typical two-week trainingcourse with 30 trainees in the year prior to the termi-nation of the second phase. KEFRI and Japan paidabout 100,000 Kenyan shillings (about 200,000 Japa-nese yen) each. The allotment of the expenses isshown in Table-1.3

The numbers in parentheses in Table-1 indicate theratio of each item to the total expense for each insti-tution. On the Japanese side, transportation expensesfor trainees accounted for 43%, the greatest ratio tothe total expense. As a result, the project planned toexperiment with cost-sharing by asking trainees tobear their transportation expenses in order to miti-gate the burden to KEFRI after the termination of theproject. Transportation expenses included all of theexpenses borne by the trainees to come to the center,that is, not only the transportation fare but also a dailyallowance and accommodation along the way, if nec-essary.

II Implementation of the Cost-SharingExperiment

The cost-sharing experiment, which asked traineesto bear transportation expenses, was implementedthree times: at teachers’ courses in November 1996

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and April 1997, and at a front-line extension staffcourse in September 1997. The process and imple-mentation of the experiments at each course are de-scribed below.

1. The Experiment at Teacher’s Course

1) The First Experiment

As mentioned earlier, the Kitui center provides sev-eral training courses for the grass roots (people). Thecenter decided to implement the cost-sharing experi-ment first by asking the trainees in a teacher's courseto bear the transportation expenses. The teacher’scourse was considered to be the most appropriate start-ing point because of the financial status of the train-ees and the possibility of obtaining financial supportfrom the institutions concerned. Prior to implement-ing the experiment, the project exchanged views withnine Districts Education Offices (DEOs) in EasternProvince, who nominated trainees for the teacher’scourses as a rule. The DEOs gave various opinionson cost-sharing: “each school would pay only thetransportation fee. If schools don't have enough bud-get, the DEO can assist,” “ the DEO and schools donot have a system to support trainees who attend suchtraining, and it is difficult due to the tight budget,”“the new application method which requests traineesto bear transportation expenses would work positively,encouraging trainees to take responsibility for attend-ing the training course.” Although opinions varied,they were not negative enough to make us feel thatcost-sharing was reckless.

Because the project asked trainees to bear the trans-portation costs to the course, application to the coursewas different from the conventional one in which theproject requested the DEOs to nominate trainees.Application information and application forms weredistributed to schools through the DEOs so that theirteachers could voluntarily apply for the course, ac-cepting the cost-sharing condition.

As a result, the project received 57 applications,which was much greater than the prescribed 30 train-ees. 31 trainees were selected, taking district distri-bution and gender balance into consideration. It wasassumed that the trainees agreed to bear the cost oftransportation because the condition was clearly statedin the application information. However, some train-ees did not recognize the condition and requested theproject to reimburse their transportation expenses.

2) The Second Experiment

The project decided to again implement the cost-sharing, of transportation expenses in the teacher’scourse held in April 1997 as the condition of cost-sharing had not been thoroughly recognized by train-ees in the first experiment, and it seemed too hasty todraw a conclusion on the possibility of the cost-shar-ing from one experiment.

Although applicants who had applied but were not

selected for the previous teacher’s course in Novem-ber 1996 were given priority to attend the secondcourse, only 12 out of 26 attended. Since the numberof applicants was less than half of the prescribed num-ber, the project asked DEOs to recruit other teacherswho wanted to attend the course and acknowledgedthe condition of bearing transportation expenses. Inthe end, the project recruited 23 trainees and con-ducted the course.

Before implementing the second experiment, theproject requested the DEOs to assist trainees with theirtransportation expenses. Based on the responses ofthe trainees and the results of the survey conductedduring the first experiment, it did not seem to be ap-propriate to have teachers bear transportation costindividually. Most of the DEOs had different re-sponses from those in the last meeting, stating thatthey had difficulty in providing financial assistance,and only encouraged schools to support transporta-tion for teachers.

In the second experiment, although the project thor-oughly confirmed in advance that applicants wouldbear transportation expenses and most of the traineesunderstood this, some trainees still requested theproject to assist them for the expenses.

3) Survey on the Reality of Bearing TransportationExpenses and Opinions on Cost-sharing

A survey of 54 trainees in total was conducted dur-ing both the first and the second experiments on theactual situation of bearing transportation expenses andopinions on the cost-sharing in order to determine thevalidity of the cost-sharing. The results of the surveyare shown below.(1) Motivation for applying

It was expected that teachers who were eager toattend the course would apply in spite of the cost toshare. Also, teachers could voluntarily apply in thenew application process, which differed from the waythey were nominated by the DEOs. In reality, con-trary to expectations, only less than 10% of the train-ees voluntarily applied to the course. Most of thetrainees applied to the courses on the recommenda-tion of headmasters or DEOs (Figure 1).(2) Transportation expenses

One-way transportation expenses, including foodand accommodation on the way, if necessary, to theKitui center was, on the average, about 600 Kenyanshillings. The minimum and the maximum expenseswere 30 Kenyan shillings and 1,850 Kenyan shillingsrespectively. According to the project staff, themonthly salary of primary school teachers was esti-mated to be about 6,000 Kenyan shillings. Hence,round trip expenses accounted for, on the average,20% of their monthly salary.(3) Source of funds

As for source of their funds, about 90% of the train-ees in the first experiment replied that they paid from“their own salaries.” Less than 10% of the trainees


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obtained funds from “school” or “ harambee throughpupils or their parents”4 (Figure 2). The results of thesurvey of the first experiment suggested that it wasnot appropriate to charge teachers’ transportation ex-penses individually and so, the project requested theDEOs to assist teachers with their transportation ex-penses prior to the implementation of the second ex-periment. Most of the trainees in the second experi-ment, however, paid for their transportation from“their own salaries” (Figure 3).(4) The value of paying

To the question of whether it was worth paying toattend the courses, around 60% of the trainees repliedpositively. Answers to this question were comparedwith the amount each trainee paid as it was assumedthat trainees who paid more for transportation wouldevaluate the value of the training more vigourously(Figure 4). A clear correlation, however, was notfound.

(5) Opinions on Cost-sharingAfter hearing about the background and necessity

of the cost-sharing experiment, trainees were askedfor their comments. Most of the trainees expressedskepticism about having to share in the costs. Somecomments were as follows: “cost-sharing hinderedparticipation in the course”; “the communities andschools which obtain benefits from the trainingthrough the trainees, or government should financiallyassist the trainees instead of making them bear theexpenses”, “the idea of cost-sharing was not bad whenthe government had enough time to prepare financialassistance and had a budget for it”; “although the ideaof cost-sharing is good, the distance to the Kitui cen-ter should be taken into consideration”; and “the tim-ing was bad because there was famine at the time.”5

4) Validity of Trainees Sharing the Cost ofTransportation Expenses

The results of the surveys conducted during the two

4. “Harambee” is a kind of mutual economic support activity rooted in Kenyan society, which is based on a spirit of mutual support. 5. Eastern Province in Kenya was exposed to severe drought in 1997 in the last several years.

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experiments revealed the following three facts: 1)Teachers who attended the courses disseminated thetechniques and knowledge which they acquiredthrough training to schools or communities; 2) Theaverage cost of transportation accounted for 20% ofthe monthly salaries of the teachers; and 3) Teacherswere not expected to obtain financial support fromDEOs or schools. As a result, it was concluded thatcost-sharing in which trainees are asked to bear trans-portation expenses to teachers’ courses is not appro-priate in the current situation.

Contrarily, because as much as 60% of the traineesreplied that it was worth paying to attend the courses,there is the possibility of introducing cost-sharing ina modified manner. For example, sponsors could befound; or instead of transportation expenses, a smallamount of money, as part of training expenses, couldbe collected from teachers or schools.

2. Experiment on a Front-line Extension StaffCourse

1) Process

As a result of the experiments in the two teacher’scourses, it was decided that asking trainees to beartransportation expenses individually was not appro-priate for the reasons mentioned above, so a thirdexperiment was conducted in a front-line extensionstaff course, in which participants could expect fi-nancial assistance from their nominators. The projectrequested District Agriculture Offices (DAOs), whichnominated trainees for the extension staff courses, tobear the transportation expenses of trainees. Then,eight DAOs out of nine in the Eastern Province ac-cepted the request and nominated 18 trainees in total.In addition, five trainees from other institutions, in-cluding a council and a KEFRI regional center, wereaccepted on condition that the institutions to whichthey belonged pay their own transportation expenses.

The course was held in September 1997 and it wasexpected that the cost-sharing would be implemented

without any problems. However, a month prior tothe course, the Kenyan government froze the imple-mentation of the budget because the World Bank sus-pended financial aid to Kenya. As a result, the DAOshad difficulty in bearing the transportation expenses.But only after the commencement of the course, sucha situation was revealed. The trainees managed to raisethe funds by temporarily paying for themselves. Asa result, cost-sharing was implemented as planned.

2) Survey of the Reality of Bearing TransportationExpenses and Opinions on Cost-sharing

During the course, a questionnaire survey of 23trainees was conducted to grasp the actual situationof bearing transportation expenses and find out theiropinions on the cost-sharing. The results of the sur-vey are described below.(1) Transportation expenses

The average one-way travel fare to the Kitui cen-ter, including necessary meals and accommodationon the way, was about 800 Kenyan shillings. Theminimum and the maximum were zero Kenyan shil-lings and 1,700 Kenyan shillings, respectively.(2) Source of funds

As for the source of the funds, only 10% of thetrainees replied that they got the “round trip fare fromtheir institutions”, 20% got the “one-way fare fromtheir institutions”, and 60% bore the “round trip fareby themselves” (Figuer 5). These results can be at-tributed to the fact that the DAOs could not bear thetransportation expenses due to the reason mentionedpreviously and had to rely on the trainees to bear theirown transportation expenses. In most cases, traineeswho paid their own expenses were reimbursed by theDAOs after the implementation of the budget wasrestored.(3) Opinions on the cost-sharing

When asked to freely comment on the cost-shar-ing, a quarter of the trainees responded positively,saying that cost-sharing “ was a good idea”. Three-quarters replied less positively, saying: “cost-sharingis a good idea if nominators or the government pay”.Some trainees just replied that “nominators shouldpay,” without making comments that were for oragainst cost-sharing and “cost-sharing is a burden fortrainees and hinders participation in the trainingcourses”. These comments could be interpreted tomean that “cost-sharing is acceptable if nominatorsbear the costs”.

When these opinions were compared with theamount trainees paid in transportation expenses, itappears that the trainees who responded less positivelybore the round-trip fare by themselves. Some train-ees who bore the round-trip fare by themselves, how-ever, showed positive attitudes to the cost-sharing.Because the correlation between opinions for andagainst the cost-sharing and the amount paid in trans-portation was not clear, it seems that the varying opin-ions are based on individual perceptions.


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3) Possibility of Trainees’ Institutions BearingTransportation Expenses

Although less than half of the DAOs bore the trans-portation expenses of trainees when the governmentfroze the implementation of the budget in responseto the World Bank’s suspension of its financial aid,the possibility of introducing cost-sharing in the ex-tension staff courses was greater for the followingreasons: eight DAOs out of nine accepted the condi-tion of cost-sharing in the application stage, and theDAOs would reimburse trainees who temporarily paidfor their own transportation expenses after implemen-tation of the budget was restored.

It should be noted that the institutions which paidround trip fares, including a council or a KEFRI re-gional center, were not regular nominators. There-fore, there may be room to recruit trainees from vari-ous institutions by imposing the condition that insti-tutions should bear transportation expenses, when thecost-sharing will be introduced in future.

III Possibility for and Effectivenessof Cost-sharing

As mentioned in chapter II, the following points weredemonstrated through the experiments in the teacher’scourses: 1) The average transportation expenses tothe Kitui center accounted for 20% of teachers’monthly salaries; 2) Beneficiaries of the training werenot only the trainees but also schools and communi-ties; and 3) Three quarters of the trainees had nega-tive views about cost-sharing. Hence, the introduc-tion of cost-sharing in which individual trainees wereasked to pay transportation expenses seems difficult.

The experiment in the front-line extension staffcourse, on the other hand, indicated a possibility forcost-sharing involving the institutions to which train-ees belong rather than the conventional nominators.

From the outcome of the three experiments, thecost-sharing, in terms of requesting trainees to beartransportation expenses, could be feasible in trainingcourses whose trainees had a chance of obtaining fi-nancial assistance from their institutions.

Although cost-sharing managed to reduce the train-ing expenses accounted for by KEFRI by makingtrainees or their institutions bear part of the expenses.This reduction was not enough to secure thesustainability of the training as a whole. This wasbecause most of the people who were the primarytargets of the training did not belong to institutionsthat could provide financial assistance. As a result,cost-sharing could only be introduced into limitedcourses.

The results of the experiments also indicated thefollowing points: 60% of the trainees recognizedthe worth of paying to attend the courses; and opin-ions for or against cost-sharing depended on each

individual’s perception, which was not influenced bythe amount of the cost borne by the trainee. As aresult, It became clear that the possibility for intro-ducing cost-sharing could be enhanced through im-proved implementation manners, and efforts of ad-vocacy and cooperation of the institution concerned.For example, the costs borne by trainees would bechanged from transportation expenses to a small fixedamount of money that schools or communities couldpay, or to food expenses which trainees would moreeasily accept to pay themselves. Another idea whichfacilitated individual trainees in accepting cost-shar-ing was modifying the course curricula for male andfemale farmers in order to incorporate more income-generating elements in order that each trainee couldfeel a benefit through the training. Moreover, the tim-ing for introducing cost-sharing should have been con-sidered to allow trainees and the institutions concernedto make a budget for it. It was also important to showthe impact of the training, which was indicated bycomparing the tree planting activities of trainees be-fore and after the training, to the institutions concernedin order to obtain their understanding and coopera-tion in the cost-sharing. Furthermore, it was usefulto convey information on cost-sharing directly to train-ees and people who would bear the expenses so asnot to impose the cost-sharing from the top. If cost-sharing were introduced into different courses in dif-ferent ways, as a result, it would play a more impor-tant role in reducing training expenses.

IV Recommendations for the Introductionof Cost-sharing

This cost-sharing experiment was originally aimedat reducing training expenses. However, through theexperiment, it became apparent that cost-sharing hasother effects apart from the reduction of expenses. Itwas also recognized that in introducing cost-sharing,the original purpose for the training should be con-sidered apart from the reduction of expenses. Thischapter will make recommendations for introducingcost-sharing in the future.

First, as for the impact of cost-sharing apart fromthe reduction of the expenses, cost-sharing had a greatimpact on training implementers in the recipient coun-tries by arousing their awareness of training expenses.In order to secure the sustainability of training afterthe termination of a project, it is necessary to makeimplementers aware of training expenses and to getthem to seriously think about how to secure the ex-penses during the project period.

Second, as some DEOs and trainees pointed out, itis necessary to get trainees or their institutions to shareresponsibility for or to become aware of the need totaking training. It is assumed that the eagerness andseriousness with which trainees take training will in-crease if they have to bear part of the cost of their

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own training.As mentioned above, cost-sharing was useful as

one of the measures for reducing training expenses,and as well, had other effects. However, it should benoted that the introduction of cost-sharing sometimescontradicted the original purpose of the training. Thiswill be elaborated at the end of this paper.

One conclusion drawn from this experiment, asmentioned earlier, is that the introduction of cost-shar-ing in which trainees bear transportation expensesindividually is difficult. However, since cost-sharingencouraged trainees to take responsibility for takingcourses, it was important to consider introducing itinto courses for farmers and female farmers who werethe primary targets of the training. On the other hand,there was concern that the introduction of cost-shar-ing might make it more difficult for the economicallyunderprivileged and women, who were in the lowerhousehold economy to participate in training courseseven though they were the main practitioners of so-cial forestry and needed the training the most. It wasimportant to provide training to residents who werenot so eager to take training in which they had to ac-cept cost-sharing, because the training not only pro-vided the technologies necessary for tree planting andseedling production, but it also motivated the localresidents to plant trees.

Although the SFTP ended in November 1997, thesecuring of training expenses is a constraint common

to other governmental institutions and non-govern-mental organizations (NGOs) that conduct similartraining. Therefore, when they consider the intro-duction of cost-sharing, they need to note the effec-tiveness of cost-sharing in terms of both expenses andnon-expenses, and the negative impact of cost-shar-ing, which detracts from the original purpose of thetraining. They also need to seek a path for imple-menting cost-sharing that is suited to the characteris-tics of the training and the social situation, based onthe purpose, effectiveness, and impact of the cost-shar-ing.

AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank her counterparts whoconducted the experiment with me, Ms. FloraMwangunga, Ms. Josephine Kamene, Mr. LucasRateng, and my colleague, Mr. Kennichi Kemmochi,a training expert. The author also wish to express toher thanks to training leader, Mr. Toshihiro Shima,who supported the implementation of this experiment.

ReferenceKenmochi, Kennichi: Social Forestry Training

Project Phase II, Expert report in social forestrytraining section, p.s-116, 1998

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Appropriateness of Introducing AutomaticX-ray Film Processing Equipment

NOTE

Appropriateness of Introducing Automatic X-ray FilmProcessing Equipment

— An Example of Improved Image Quality for Chest X-rays Using Automatic X-ray

Film Processing Equipment in the Nepal TB Center —

Takuji DATEJICA Expert,Tuberculosis Control in Yemen,

Former Assistant Lecturer, Dept. of Clinical Radiology, Faculty of Health Science,Hiroshima International University

Junko DATEPhD Candidate, Graduate School of Medicine, Yamaguchi University,

Former Assistant Lecturer, Dept. of Clinical Radiology, Faculty of Health Science,Hiroshima International University

Ikushi ONOZAKIChief Advisor, National Tuberculosis Control Project in Cambodia,

Former Director of Quarantine Division, Narita Airport Quarantine Station,Ministry of Health and Welfare

Diagnostic x-ray film with low image quality may result in wrong diagnoses or re-examinations, which canlead to unnecessary radiation exposure for patients and a waste of x-ray film. Maintaining the image qual-ity of x-ray examinations for doctors is the prime task of radiological technologists and it also benefits thepatients. However, the image quality of x-ray examinations in developing countries is not always goodenough to diagnose the patients' illnesses. One of the main reasons for this situation may be the use ofmanual x-ray film processing techniques. This problem can be solved using automatic x-ray film process-ing equipment. This equipment needs, however, the establishment of a maintenance system and adequatewater and electric supply and consumable chemicals.

The Nepal Tuberculosis Center (NTC) was installed with conventional x-ray and tomography equip-ment, and the x-ray film was processed manually. Responding to a request from NTC, JICA suppliedautomatic x-ray film processing equipment (KONICA RA-17A) for improving the image quality of x-rayexaminations for TB patients. A comparison of the x-ray films produced by manual and automatic process-ing shows that the image quality has been improved by using automatic equipment. This result can lead toprecise diagnoses for the patients. It is also important to develop the facility and to provide technicalsupport for appropriate maintenance of the equipment. Budgeting for maintenance costs for the equipmentis very important, but it is not an easy task in developing countries.

It is confirmed that by adding an automatic x-ray film processing equipment to conventional x-rayequipment, the image quality for chest x-rays could be improved within a short period. Maintenance per-formance is considered one of the prime requirements for keeping the equipment in good condition overthe long term. The next focus should be the improvement of medical equipment use with effective andadequate maintenance techniques in a more cost-efficient manner.

Introduction

Most of the grant aid projects by the Japan Interna-tional Cooperation Agency (JICA) in developingcountries to help construct, repair, and equip medial

* This article was first published in Japanese in Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu Vol. 15 No.2 (October 1999). 1. T. Shiina et al., "Kaihatsu Tojoukoku ni okeru Houshasen Kiki Secchi no Arikata: Mushoushikin Kyouryoku he no Gaidorain (Desiderata for Installing Radiography

Equipment in Developing Countries: A Guideline for Grant Aid Cooperation)," Kokusai Kyoryoku Kenkyu, 11(1): 89-9, 1995

facilities includes the provision of medical equipment,almost all of which includes diagnostic radiographyequipment.1

But the x-ray images obtained with this diagnosticradiography equipment do not always have a great deal


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Photo 3 An indirect chest x-ray image in the NepalTuberculosis Center (developed by hand)

Photo 2 A direct chest x-ray image in the NepalTuberculosis Center (developed by hand)

of value for diagnosis. Some of the reasons for thisare as follows: (1) despite the fact that medical equip-ment contains precise parts, it is operated in a loca-tion with poor environmental controls, such as heatand dust controls; (2) insufficient maintenance foreconomic or technical reasons; (3) inability to main-tain a high-quality, stable power sources; (4) suffi-

ciently experienced technicians are not assigned tohandle the radiological diagnostic equipment; (5)because it is unfeasible to periodically purchase con-sumable items, an expired developer, a fixer and filmare used.2

Particularly, x-ray film is developed by hand (filmis immersed in a tank with a developing and fixing

Photo 1 A typical direct chest x-ray image in Japan(using automatic x-ray film processingequipment )

Photo 4 An x-ray image of an infant's lung in Ghana(developed by hand)

2. P.E.S. Palmer, "The World Health Organization-Basic Radiology System," Radiography, 51(597): 89-96, 1995; W.A. Fuchas, "Radiology in Developing Countries,"Invest Radiol, 26(10): 906-909, 1991.

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solution, where it is developed) in many developingcountries. This is the prime factor for the image qual-ity of diagnostic x-ray examinations.

For reference, a typical chest x-ray image automati-cally developed in Japan is shown in Photo 1, whilex-ray images developed by hand in a developing coun-try are shown in Photos 2 - 4. Photo 1 shows all lungfields on either side are visualized in the image, andthe pulmonary vascular blood flow, the trachea andbronchial tubes of the mediastinal portion also clearlyappeared. In contrast, scratches (marked by arrows)on Photo 2, caused by a hanger when the image washung to dry, make the diagnosis difficult. Photo 3shows insufficient brightness caused in both lungfields due to improper heat control during develop-ment, it makes the diagnosis difficult again. More-over, irregular brightness in the mediastinal portionof the right lung further degrades the image quality.Photo 4 shows brightness irregularities caused by theimproper mixing of the developer liquid or powder,it makes diagnosis impossible. Automatic film pro-cessing equipment should be suitable for eliminatingthe types of image problems arising when film is de-veloped by hand that are shown in the examples. TheWorld Health Organization (WHO), however, doesnot recommend the use of automatic x-ray film pro-cessing equipment in developing countries, becausewithout a thorough maintenance system, the equip-ment will become unusable after a year or more.3

JICA has implemented a tuberculosis controlproject in Nepal from 1987 to 1994. In 1989, theNational Tuberculosis Center (NTC) was constructedthrough grant aid, and equipped with x-ray and to-mography equipment for radiological diagnosis. Sub-sequently, the NTC requested an automatic x-ray filmprocessing equipment, which JICA provided (aKONICA RA-17A) in 1992 as technical equipmentfor the project. This paper reports on the effect thatthe existing automatic x-ray film processing equip-ment had shown on the quality improvement of chestx-ray images, and the maintenance system that al-lowed the equipment's effective use over the long term.

I Objective

Abnormal shadows in chest x-ray are not always tu-berculosis.4 Consequently, unlike a chest x-ray, thesputum examination provides a definitive diagnosisof tuberculosis. On the other hand, a chest x-ray canbe used to observe the location and aspect of the ill-

ness. x-ray examination is used not only for identify-ing patients who are sputum negative but also for thefollow up of the patients' condition and observing theprogress of treatment. For this reason, chest x-raysare a common method for visualizing the chest dis-eases around the world. Chest x-rays with poor im-age quality, however, can cause misdiagnoses or re-quire repeated examinations, wasting economic re-sources and exposing the patient to higher doses ofradiation than necessary.5 Consequently, providing thephysician with high-quality x-ray images benefitsanyone who will be examined by x-ray, and the pre-cise control of these x-ray images is an important taskfor the radiological technologist. In particular, it istechnically very difficult to process indirect x-rayimages using roll film by hand, and difficult to con-sistently maintain high image quality (Photo 3). More-over, mistakes made when developing film by handcan waste the entire roll of film and patients' chest x-rays.

In order to resolve this problem, it is preferable touse an automatic x-ray film processing equipment in-stead of developing the film by hand. This shouldmake it possible to maintain a consistent level of im-age quality, rather than having it depend solely onthe capabilities of the technician developing the film.This document compares chest x-ray images devel-oped by hand with those developed using the auto-matic x-ray film processing equipment supplied byJICA, evaluates the impact on x-ray image quality,and examines its effects.

II Evaluation Method

There are basically two ways to evaluate the qualityof an x-ray image: quantitative (physical) methods,and qualitative (psychological) methods. A represen-tative quantitative method is frequency analysis,which is grounded in information theory. Meanwhile,a representative qualitative method is receiver oper-ating characteristic (ROC) analysis, which is groundedin psychology.6 These methods, however, require spe-cial wavelength analysis equipment, and special ma-terials must be prepared for ROC curves.

The present document uses an evaluation methodbased on that used by the Research Institute of Tu-berculosis Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association toevaluate chest x-rays (Table 1).7 Some deficienciesof this evaluation method are that it cannot clearlydifferentiate between image brightness, contrast and

3. WHO, Technical Specifications for the World Health Imaging System for Radiography - The WHIS-RAD, 1995; The WHO Collaborating Centre for RadiologicalEducation at the Lund University Hospital, Aquisition Order for X-ray Equipment to a New X-ray Department in Developing Country, WHO, Version 1996-2-16,1996.

4. Research Institute of Tuberculosis, Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association, Training Div. (ed), Kaitei Kekkakubyou Gairon (Another Look at Tuberculosis), Japan Anti-Tuberculosis Association, pp 80-81, 1970.

5. WHO, A Rational Approach to Radiodiagnostic Investigation, Technical Report Series 689: pp 7-11, 1983. 6. Masaru Uchida, Hitoshi Kanamori and Hiroshi Inazu, Houshasen Gazou Jouhou Kougaku (I) (Radiographic Imagery Information Engineering I), Research Institute

of International Trade and Industry, pp 141-143, 1986. 7. Research Institute of Tuberculosis, Chiba Branch, Kyoubu Kansetsu Shashin Dokuei noTebiki (A Reference for Reading Indirect Chest Imagery), p 88, 1990.


78

sharpness, and the results, therefore, may cause dis-crepancies between evaluators. This method wasemployed, however, in light of the facts that it couldbe applied on-site in Nepal, it is widely used in Japanto evaluate chest x-rays, and it is an excellent methodfor evaluating the diagnosis of tuberculosis in adultpatients - the majority of patients in this case - aswell as the observation of the disease's progressionin these patients.

The methods used for the present evaluation wereslightly different from those used by the ResearchInstitute of Tuberculosis. In terms of 1) brightnessand 2) contrast, the images were divided into the fol-lowing four regions: a) lung fields; b) lung periph-ery; c) mediastinal portion; and d) heart shadow, and

the evaluation emphasized the lung fields, for the fol-lowing two reasons. First, the high-tube-voltage tech-nique commonly used in Japan to visualize the medi-astinal portions and heart shadow region are rare inNepal, making it impossible to conduct an equivalentevaluation for these regions. Second, the lung fieldsare the most important region for diagnosing tuber-culosis patients and observing the progression of theirdisease.

In addition, the evaluation standards were loosenedbecause most x-ray equipment in Nepal is notequipped with 5) measures to protect the gonads, andmoreover lead protective equipment is not in wide-spread use. In the case of evaluation item 7) marks, ifit could not be determined whether a mark was made

79


during development or storage, a single-rank evalua-tion standard was used. In addition, items 8) appro-priateness of the x-ray equipment and markers and 9)film size were excluded from the evaluation, since itwas not possible to make a straight comparison withJapanese evaluation standards, and because they arenot directly related to image quality.

The overall evaluation was divided into 5 catego-ries, from A to E, with C further divided into threesubcategories: C+, C, and C-.A: Extremely good film with great value for radio-

diagnosis(film for which all factors scored a "1")

B: Excellent film (close to A)(film for which one or two factors scored a "2")

C: Possible to diagnose with this filmC+: Close to B (Ok to have "2"s, but no "3"s)C : (film with a preponderance of "2"s and "3"s)C- : Close to D (preponderance of "2," "3," and

"4" scores)D: Extremely difficult to diagnose with this filmE: Absolutely impossible to diagnose with this filmThe evaluation was performed by three people: a

radiological technologist from the Research Instituteof Tuberculosis who was well trained in the evalua-tion method; a radiological technologist who had re-ceived training in this evaluation method (one of theauthors: Takuji Date); and a physician experiencedwith this evaluation method, and with experience di-agnosing tuberculosis and lung cancer (one of theauthors: Ikushi Onozaki).

Materials from 4 sources were used: (1) Four rollsof film for indirect imaging developed by hand at NTC(each roll holding images of 30 patients, for chest x-rays from a total of 120 patients); (2) Four rolls offilm for indirect imaging developed automatically atNTC (each roll holding images of 30 patients, forchest x-rays from a total of 120 patients); (3) fourrolls of film for indirect imaging developed by handfrom a military hospital in Nepal for health checktaken of incoming military personnel, for use in com-

paring facilities inside Nepal (each roll holding im-ages of 30 patients, for chest x-rays from a total of120 patients); and (4) one roll of film for indirectimaging taken at a Japanese facility, kept as a sampleby the Research Institute of Tuberculosis for use as apoint of comparison with typical Japanese images(holding images of 30 patients). Each of these 390indirect chest x-ray images was chosen at random,and used for radiodiagnosis.

Four sources were also used for the direct chest x-rays: (1) direct chest x-ray images of 90 patients de-veloped by hand at NTC; (2) direct chest x-ray im-ages of 83 patients developed automatically at NTC;(3) direct chest x-ray images of 81 patients developedat a military hospital in Nepal, for use in comparingfacilities inside Nepal; and (4) direct chest x-ray im-ages of 30 patients kept as a sample by the ResearchInstitute of Tuberculosis for use as a point of com-parison with typical Japanese images. These 284 di-rect chest x-ray images were used in the evaluation.

At this point, it may be beneficial to briefly de-scribe the differences between direct and indirect x-ray imaging. Direct x-ray imaging uses a sheet of filmof roughly the same size as the patient area to be vi-sualized; an image is created on the film by passingX rays through the body of the patient. Conversely,with indirect x-ray imaging the image formed by Xrays passing through the patient's body is reduced byusing a lens apparatus, onto a roll of film with a widthof 75 - 100 mm. While an advantage of indirect im-aging is that the cost of film per patient is lower thanwith direct imaging, the image quality is worse, andthe radiation exposure is said to be about 1.4 timeshigher.8

III Results and Discussion

The results are shown in Figure 1 and 2. First, as seenby the results of indirect x-ray imaging shown in Fig-ure 1, the indirect chest x-rays developed by hand at

8. Shogo Kozu and Seigo Nakaoji, "Kyoubu Kenshinji no Hibakusen Ryou (Irradiation Levels during Chest Exams)," Konica X-ray Image Research, 43(2): 59-60, 1992.


80

NTC received nearly the same evaluation as the indi-rect chest x-rays developed by hand at a military hos-pital. From these evaluations it can be surmised thatthe average evaluation for Nepal is no greater than a"C." In contrast, indirect chest x-rays developed us-ing automatic x-ray film processing equipment atNTC had a larger number of images with high evalu-ations, and a higher number of "C+" scores. How-ever, the evaluations of these images were still lowerthan those of the Japanese sample.

The same trend can be seen in the case of the di-rect chest x-ray images as well. One point that standsout in this case is the fact that some of the direct chestx-rays developed using automatic x-ray film process-ing equipment at NTC were evaluated with scores of"A" and "B," giving an overall score approachingJapanese standards. From this it can be concluded thatthe use of automatic x-ray film processing equipmenthad a certain level of success at improving the imagequality of chest x-rays.

IV Problems of Maintenance System

As shown above, x-ray image quality is an extremelyimportant factor for diagnosis. This is true in bothindustrial and developing countries. And it is clearfrom the results of the present evaluation that install-ing automatic x-ray film processing equipment helpsto improve image quality. This shows that installingautomatic x-ray film processing equipment can beexpected to improve x-ray image quality, at a lowercost than replacing with superior radiological diag-nostic equipment.

The other side of the coin, however, is that the op-eration of automatic x-ray film processing equipmentrequires an appropriate maintenance system for theequipment, a stable power supply, an adequate watersupply for washing the film, and the regular purchaseof film, and other consumable items. With respect tothe maintenance of the automatic x-ray film process-ing equipment, it was possible to determine that thetechnicians at the manufacturer's local office had thecapability to maintain and repair equipment, and sothe NTC was advised to sign a maintenance agree-ment. At the time, however, almost all of the mainte-nance budget was being used to repair official vehicleused to transport medicine, thus the only an on-callsystem could be applied, in which a technician wouldbe called when needed to repair the automatic x-rayfilm processing equipment. It was at least possible tosecure personnel capable of repairing the equipment.In order to supplement the on-call system, NTC em-ployees were given responsibility for daily cleaningand periodic inspection of the equipment, and the ra-diologists and other personnel were given technical

training to minimize technical troubles.The equipment was plugged into a surge protector,

and was also wired to the NTC generator so that itwould have a power supply in the event of a black-out. A backup tank was set up to hold water for wash-ing, so that the equipment would have a supply ofwater even if the water pipes were temporarily shutoff. A stock of consumable items that would last forsome time was also procured. However, there was noimmediate solution for the problem of the system thatobliged them to periodically purchase consumableitems, as this would depend on the budget of the NTCand the ability of the manufacturer's local office tokeep these items in stock.

It has been reported that subsequently, the watersupply situation took a turn for the worse, and atpresent well water with a high mineral content is be-ing used. Furthermore, due to the democratization ofthe Nepalese government, and consequent intra-gov-ernmental personnel movement, in 1992 one of theemployees in charge of maintaining the equipmentleft the center. Despite these poor conditions, how-ever, as of 1998 the automatic x-ray film processingequipment is still in operation. It can be summarizedthat securing personnel capable of repairing the equip-ment and giving several employees technical train-ing on day-to-day maintenance and inspections had acertain level of success at extending the period ofusability of the automatic x-ray film processing equip-ment.

V Discussion

The Nepal Tuberculosis Control Project showed thatinstalling an automatic x-ray film processing equip-ment was effective in improving x-ray image qualityover a short period of time. Furthermore, this equip-ment was continuously used over a long-term periodof at least 6 years. The background for this, there wasacquisition of stable supplies of water and power, andtransfer of maintenance techniques. Consequently, atleast these two elements should probably be set asconditions for providing automatic x-ray film process-ing equipment in order to obtain x-ray images withgreat value for diagnosis.

Conclusion

The introduction of medical equipment and its man-agement in developing countries should be carefullyconsidered, in light of that country's economic infra-structure and other conditions.9 This is because whileexpensive, precise medical equipment has a benefi-cial effect on medical care in the developing country,

9. Kazuo Inamoto, "Houshasen Iryou no Tekisei Gijutsu (Appropriate Technologies for Radiological Medical Care)," Kokusai Iryo Hoken (International Medico-hygienic Sciences), 8(1): 9-18, 1994.

81


the maintenance of this equipment also inevitablyplaces an economic burden on the country.

This paper concentrates on diagnostic radiographyequipment and the processing of film obtained there-from. Automatic x-ray film processing equipment isless expensive and structurally simpler than an x-rayCT scanner or angiography. Yet installing this equip-ment greatly improved the image quality of chest x-rays over a short period of time. The authors believethat this experience in Nepal increases the possibilityof introducing this equipment in other developingcountries facing the same sort of situations.

With a small budget, x-ray image quality and thelevel of diagnostic capabilities can be improved, giv-ing the patient a greater level of care. Additional seri-ous studies will be needed to determine whether theseresults can be applied to other developing countries.

As a future topic of study, it may be necessary toselect the specifications of medical equipment basedon the study reports of the maintenance capabilities

in local level, through also taking the requests fromthe developing country into account. The authors alsoconsider that technical cooperation should be con-ducted to train personnel in the effective maintenanceof all medical equipment after it has been provided,allowing the recipient to extend the durable life ofthe medical equipment and offer more precise medi-cal care.

In closing, the authors would like to express ourheartfelt thanks to Mr. Shogo KOZU, formerly em-ployed by the Research Institute of Tuberculosis, forhis cooperation.

ReferenceDate, T.: Quality of X-ray Examination in Nepal.

Seminar and Workshop on National Tuberculo-sis Control Programme, National TuberculosisCenter, Katmandu, pp. 45-46. 1993.

83

INFORMATION

1 The Third Country Study for Japan's Official DevelopmentAssistance to the Republic of the Philippines

1. Background and Purpose of the Study

Regarding the Philippines, the First Country Studyfor Japan's Official Development Assistance to theRepublic of the Philippines was conducted in 1987,and the Second Country Study was conducted in 1994,to study Japan's official development assistance dur-ing the Aquino and Ramos administrations.

After the Second Country Study, the Philippineeconomy faced the Asian monetary crisis while itsreconstruction advanced. On the other hand, the en-vironment surrounding the assistance has beenchanging, which can be seen in the increased con-cern about poverty and regional disparity in develop-ment.

The Committee on the Third Country Study wasorganized in April 1998, prior to the inauguration ofthe Estrada administration in June 1998, to study theapproach to assistance to the Philippines during theadministration. It compiled the results of committeemeetings held ten times, and field surveys, in the formof proposals on future assistance to the Philippines.

2. Committee Composition

■ ChairpersonAkira TAKAHASHI

Professor, Kokushikan University■ Committee MembersKatsumi NOZAWA

Professor, Asia UniversityYutaka KATAYAMA

Professor, Graduate School of International Coop-eration, Kobe University

Hiromitsu UMEHARAProfessor, Rikkyo University

Mitsuo FUKUSHIMADirector, Area Studies Department 1, IDE-JETRO

Kazuto TSUJIDirector, 3rd Division, Operations Department I,Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund(Until October 1998)

Hiroshi SUZUKIDirector, 3rd Division, Operations Department I,Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund(Since October 1998)

Hideaki SHIBUYAAssociate Professor, Tokyo Gakugei University

Toshitaka NAKAHARAProfessor, Graduate School of Medicine, KyotoUniversity

Takehiko OHTAProfessor, Graduate School of Agricultural and LifeScience,The University of Tokyo

Juro CHIKARAISHIDirector, Planning Division, Planning Department,Japan International Cooperation Agency

3. Report Summary

1) Overview of Political and Economic Conditions

The Committee summarized the political and eco-nomic conditions after the Second Country Study, asfollows. The Ramos administration attained politi-cal stability by concluding peace agreements with theNational Army Reformists and the Moro NationalLiberation Front (MNLF), and realized a GNP growthrate of between 5% and 6%, and per capita GNP of$1,000, by implementing economic reforms such asderegulation.

The Committee judged that the Philippine economycan be said to have gotten back on track to stablegrowth since 1997, although the economy has beenaffected by the monetary crisis.

2) Perspective of Assistance toward the Philippines

The Philippine economy achieved a prerequisite con-dition for full-scale development by getting back ontrack to stable growth, as mentioned above.

On the other hand, there are still wide-ranging pov-erty problems that are slow in improving, and dispar-ity between classes and regions. The Committee con-sidered these issues important in assistance. Aimedat alleviating poverty, the Committee placed impor-tance on support for direct improvement of livelihood,in concert with support for basic health service andeducation, as they are closely related to the issue.

Decentralization is also viewed as an important is-sue in terms of regional development and reducingregional disparity.

As the Philippines has such environmental and di-saster problems as deterioration of the environmentin urban areas, the destruction of forests and devasta-tion of slope farmland, earthquakes, and typhoons,support for such problems is also considered impor-


84

INFORMATION

tant for sustainable development.The Committee concluded that efforts for economic

development are continuously important in order torealize progress of social development and povertyalleviation, and that support for improving produc-

tivity in the agricultural sector, strengthening themanufacturing sector, including promoting supplyindustries, and developing an economic infrastructure,are continuously necessary.

JICA

Japan

International

Cooperation

Agency

IFIC

Institute

For

International

Cooperation

was established on 1 August 1974 as an official aid agency of Japan under the

supervision of the Ministry of Foreign affairs. In order to help promote the economic

and social development of the developing world, JICA extends various kinds of

cooperation including technical cooperation, grant aid, dispatch of Japan Overseas

Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) and disaster relief.

was established on 1 October 1983 as one of JICA’s affiliated organs. Its purpose is

undertaking recruitment of senior advisors, training qualified Japanese experts,

research and study, and collection and dissemination of information of technical

cooperation.

Documents

Technology and Development - JICA · Technology and Development is published once a year by the Institute for International Cooperation (IFIC). The The articles are selected and translated