Japan's Foreign Aid to Africa

Angola and Mozambique within the TICAD Process

Pedro Amakasu Raposo

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780415821568
• eBook ISBN: 9781136754432
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) was established in 1993 with the intention of creating opportunities for trade and investment on both sides and the promotion of sustainable development. In 2003, the conference translated Japanese aid policy to Africa into three key pillars: human centered development, poverty reduction through economic growth, and the consolidation of peace, and since 2005 Africa has on several occasions been the largest recipient of Japanese overseas aid.

Tracing Japanese foreign aid to Africa during and after the Cold War, this book examines how the TICAD process sits at the intersection of international relations and domestic decision making. Indeed, it questions whether the increase in aid has been driven by domestic changes such as demands from civil society and donor interest, or pressures emanating from the international system. Taking Angola and Mozambique as case studies, the book explores how Japan's development cooperation with Africa has assisted previously war torn states make the transition from war to peace, and in doing so demonstrates the centrality of human security to Japanese foreign policy as a means of ensuring sustainable development.

This book will have great interdisciplinary appeal to students and scholars of Japanese and African studies, Japanese politics, international relations theory, foreign policy, economic development and sustainable development.

Part I

Introduction

1 Japan's national interest and the significance of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD)

During the 1990s, Japan became the world's largest donor of official development assistance (ODA) and Asia the biggest recipient. Africa occupied a secondary position in terms of aid allocation and political importance as well. Japan's total bilateral ODA to Africa increased from US$371 million in 1980 to US$792 million in 1990, and US$1.3 billion in 1995 (see Table 6.1, p. 99). Considering that between 1970 and 1990, no more than 12 countries (see Figure 6.1, p. 117) shared approximately 71 per cent of Japan's total bilateral ODA, Morikawa (1997: 1, 4) observes that Japan's presence in Africa has not become as significant and valued as generally believed.

Japan's focus on a handful of countries (for example, Ghana, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Sudan, Zaire, Tanzania, Zambia or South Africa) inevitably leads to the perception that Japan was simply interested in the economic resources or political voice of these countries without examining, for example, what has prevented Japan from allocating aid to other neighbouring countries, particularly Angola and Mozambique; or in what other ways Japan has contributed to Africa's development or to Southern Africa's conflict resolution, or even to minimize Africa's basic human needs (BHN).

The Cold War, apartheid, the ongoing civil wars in Angola and Mozambique on the one hand, and Japan's constitutional constraints, domestic political system and Japanese public opposition to military activities of any kind on the other hand, prevented Japan engaging beyond emergency relief or humanitarian assistance with ODA supporting peace building.

The end of the Cold War and apartheid triggered far reaching political and economic reforms in many African countries. A considerable number of these countries, including Angola, Mozambique, Sudan and Sierra Leone listed as fragile states by the World Bank, were facing enormous post-war economic reconstruction problems (Minato 2009: 14, 16).

Despite the near absence of diplomatic relations between Japan and Angola and Mozambique since the mid-1970s, in 1992 Japan sent election observers to the United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM-II), and in 1993 dispatched SDF troops to the UN Operations in Mozambique (ONUMOZ).

Japan's involvement in Angola and Mozambique had a deep impact on its African diplomacy, as these were the first successful cases of its political engagement outside Asia. Japan's participation in UNAVEM-II and ONUMOZ also gave Tokyo space to launch its own diplomatic initiative in the form of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in 1993. On the other hand, all participants at the first TICAD recognized ‘the continued fragility and vulnerability of Africa's political and economic structures' (MOFA 1993:1). Helping war torn economies, until the 1990s, was not formally one of Japan's priorities in granting development assistance (Haughton 2002: 223).

A study of Japan's aid flows to Angola and Mozambique reveals that Japan's approach became conflict-sensitive, thus departing from the traditional pattern of Japanese development cooperation that has rarely dealt with emergency situations in fragile states or conflict-affected countries. Up to 2009 (FASID 2009: 38), Japan has not yet adopted an explicit policy for engaging fragile states. Despite this, with the third pillar of TICAD, the so-called consolidation of peace, Japanese ODA to Africa began developing an assistance approach based on state fragility, with human security and peace building becoming priority areas of its ODA. This pillar is especially significant because by merging security with ODA for development in post-conflict situations, Japan institutionalized a peace building assistance role for ODA to fragile states in Africa. As such, it provided a framework for Japan to engage with countries where it had not done so previously.

The enactment of the ODA Charter in 1992, its revision in 2003 and the outcome of TICAD, consolidated Japanese aid policies to Africa into three pillars: human-centred development, poverty reduction through economic growth and consolidation of peace. In 2004, a new geographic trend emerged in which Asia would no longer be the first destination of Japanese ODA. As for Angola and Mozambique after 2000s, they became major recipients of Japanese ODA and a model for the TICAD.

Therefore, this book provides an excellent opportunity to understand why Japan is presently paying more attention to Africa, a continent in which Japan has had difficulty in identifying interests (Orr 1990: 93). As a result, it explores the following questions concerning Japanese aid, which has taken place during and after the Cold War. First, which changes in the international system could have affected Japan's foreign policy, especially its foreign aid to Africa? Second, which changes in Japan's domestic politics, independent of changes in the international system, have affected its foreign policy, particularly in terms of foreign aid to Africa? Third, why has Japan's foreign policy post-Cold War became more focused on Africa than previously? Fourth, why does the TICAD focus on Africa, or why is the TICAD a useful case study for explaining Japan's aid policy to Africa? Fifth, what makes Angola and Mozambique particularly good cases for understanding Japan's foreign aid policy to Africa, or for understanding the TICAD framework, and what distinguishes these two nations from other ODA recipients such as Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia?

Japan's national interest and the TICAD

As for any other state, Japan's foreign aid policy has been shaped by the interplay of internal and external influences (Lieber 2008: xiv; Hirata 2002:176). In understanding Japanese foreign aid policy it is vital to pay attention to the domestic context in which decisions are made. The analysis of foreign aid policy cannot be made without understanding the international context in which it takes place. Decision-makers make their own choices, but they do not determine the circumstances in which these choices are made (Lieber 2008: xii–xiii). Yet, without domestic resonance, international pressure probably would not have sufficed to produce the Japanese decision of organizing the TICAD conference, thus calling up all past strategy of the Japanese development approach towards Africa, and its foreign aid policy as well.

Policy-makers are often inclined to maintain that ODA to Africa serves Japanese national interests. As a result, in order to acquire the public's support, decision-makers such as MOFA might have conceived certain actions that are aimed to achieve goals defined as national interest. Could TICAD be described as one such action? The evidence suggests that it is.

At the international level, the TICAD is a call to the international and donor community concerning the marginalization of Africa. By involving the United Nations (UN) and the Global Coalition for Africa (CGA) and African countries as well, Japanese diplomacy established new connections between bilateral and multilateral dialogues that until recently were conducted separately. Simultaneously, Japan supported the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) in TICAD II, and in TICAD III initiated a bridge between Asia and Africa as part of its strategic plan to position itself as a major Asian power (Lehman 2005:427). If during the 1970s and 1980s, Japan's perception that trading benefits to Japan from aid to Africa were insufficient (Rix 1980: 222) to warrant a shift in priorities, the 1990s through the TICAD Process seems to show the opposite trend. Thus, strengthening aid ties with African nations can generate positive effects in Africa and by implication between Asia and Africa.

In this context, the TICAD Process incorporates the orientation (or identity) of Japanese ‘Asianism’ in the sense that it uses aid not power to help to end poverty in Africa, just as in Asia. However, as Green states, the ‘Asianization’ of Japanese foreign policy should not be overstated (Green 2001: 8–9). Japan's proactive diplomacy towards Africa after the 1990s shows its desire to establish greater influence and empowerment beyond Asia. This is reflected in Japan's renewed focus on the UN's potential as an institution for the legitimization of a global security role for Japan beyond its traditional limitations (Fukushima 2007: 168). Simultaneously, it provides Africans and Japanese prosperity in the name of partnership. To a certain extent the continuing support of Japanese civil society for the TICAD Process suggests that they identify themselves with the policy-making process within a particular foreign policy. As will be seen in later chapters, subsequent actions of the different actors involved in the decision-making process of TICAD do not directly determine Japanese identity but rather the national interests of particular groups within Japanese society.

The significance of TICAD

The TICAD can be seen as both an agenda of the Japanese Government and a comprehensive approach to Japanese foreign policy for Africa and the Africans after the Cold War. In other words, the TICAD has provided the common link for not only articulating the Japanese Government's intended objectives, but also for joining African leaders, development partners and the UN system to discuss African problems based on the principles of ownership and partnership.

Given this definition it would seem that Japan departed from the prevailing egoism of contemporary world politics in which states' actions are justified frequently based on national interests. But why, with what purpose and end, would Japan organize a forum for Africa and the Africans if Japan biggest share of its ODA still goes to the Asia region?

To find the answer, one must return at least to 1991, when the Japanese Government replied to an appeal from Africa, made at the 46th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and committed to convene in Tokyo in 1993 a summit-level African Development Conference to address the problems of African countries (Nakayama 1991). The UNGA, acknowledging that there can be no development without peace, under resolution 46/151 of 18 December 1991 (UNGA 1991: 46), adopted the New Agenda for the Development of Africa (UN-NADAF) in the 1990s. UNGA asked the international community to support Africa's peace initiatives. On its side, Africa committed itself to implementing peace and social stability and to intensifying South-South Cooperation (SSC) for the success of the New Agenda for international cooperation (UNGA 1991). For their part, developed countries committed themselves to cooperating with Africa in the implementation of the Agenda. However, an independent evaluation of the UN-NADAF pointed out that once the New Agenda was adopted, most bilateral donors began to demonstrate their indifference to the commitments they had made. With the exception of the TICAD, the Agenda was never referred to in documents describing bilateral cooperation policies (UNGA 2002: 49). At this point, it seems to us that Japan was one of the few donors interested in Africa in the aftermath of the Cold War.

The developments in the world political situation in the 1990s, the significant failure of economic reforms in Africa, and both Africa and Japan's perception that at some point in the 1990s, a legitimate post-apartheid Government would emerge in South Africa, required rethinking Japan-Africa relations (Kasongo 2010: 203). On the other hand, two months after the first TICAD, the UNGA considered the conference the ideal framework for pursuing and implementing the objectives of the UN-NADAF. Hence, the UNGA (1993: 2, 4, 5) through resolution 48/214 of December 1993, requested Governments, intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the UN system to implement the commitments contained in the Tokyo Declaration of 6 October 1993, with the participation of interested parties from Africa, and the international community.

In fact, the answer to the question of Japanese attention to Africa lies partly within and outside Africa. Presently, the enhancement of the living standards of many Asian economies is at its limit as many of Japan's partners are Middle-Income Countries (MIC). Though Japan still tends to support Asian MIC on the one hand, Japan was under pressure to comply with the DAC consensus to focus aid efforts on least developed countries (Kim and Potter 2012: 18). On the other hand, Japan assumed the position of top DAC donor, organized the TICAD, and showed the world that it was ready to bear the political costs of being a great power (Carvalho, Kim and Potter 2012: 135).

Since Japan's ODA is considered to be a diplomatic tool, decisions are not based solely on economic factors but political and diplomatic ones as well. The increase of interest toward Africa is thus, explained by the decrease of interest in Asia to the extent that individual countries or the region as a whole became less significant to Japan. Moreover, since the 1990s Japan's massive ODA to Asian economies and particularly to China has been questioned by Japanese public opinion, which in some cases does not understand what national interests ODA represent? This has become the Japanese decision-maker's biggest dilemma as the image of Japanese individuality and distinctiveness held and projected through ODA in Asia has shown signs of collective exhaustion (Ashizawa 2008: 575). Thus, the domestic environment unquestionably shaped Japanese foreign policy decision-making in the sense that foreign aid policy was not attaining what most Japanese citizens expected from it. This supports the hypothesis that although changes in the structure of the international system, such as the ending of the Cold War, have contributed to shaping the behaviour of Japanese African policy, in an analysis of foreign policy choices, it is not international but domestic structures which matter most.

However, internal pressures were not the main cause for MOFA to organize the TICAD. At most, the public has called for greater accountability and criticized the lack of visibility of Japanese assistance towards the developing world. The public criticism, thus, favoured MOFA discourse on the use of aid to support Japan's international diplomacy, a window of opportunity to launch the TICAD while attempting to serve the domestic constituencies of METI, and converge with the international expectations of Japan's role. Therefore, the TICAD Process is considered a new diplomatic approach in Japanese foreign policy in the sense that the Japanese government changed from an ODA policy that was basically reactive during the Cold War, to a pro-active ODA policy after the Cold War. Second, the TICAD Process became a flexible political mechanism of the Japanese government to inform the general public about ODA and to encourage support for ODA as a pillar of Japan's foreign policy. Then, Suto Takaya, the Director-General of the Foreign Ministry's Middle Eastern and African Bureau and the organizer of TICAD, proving that MOFA has been the major player of aid administration and the strongest supporter of expanding aid, became the key actor favouring a more comprehensive African policy embodied in the TICAD (Morikawa 1997: 204). Third, Takashi Inoguchi (1993: 146–8) argues that Japan must share the burden of global responsibilities to the developing World. This reflects the call from the international community to Japan to depart from its narrow calculations of national interest and contribute more aid to economic development.

The organization of TICAD has fulfilled the expectations of donors (such as the United States and Europe) that were experiencing a sense of ‘aid-fatigue’ and recipients were putting pressure on Japan (now the largest aid donor among all the countries of the world) to fulfil its international responsibilities.

By trying to respond to external demands on Japan's aid policy and simultaneously pay attention to domestic needs, the MOFA is more likely than other domestic actors to bring foreign pressure into the policy process and thereby strengthen its own domestic position (Hirata 1998: 314–15). Other international systemic factors such as the end of the Cold War and apartheid triggered Japan's involvement in Africa through TICAD by drawing political dividends in raising the state's international profile toward Africa's development (Cornelissen 2004: 120).

Although international factors do not have a direct effect on changes in allocation of ODA, over time they have exerted some influence in MOFA staff members by virtue of their participation at international forums such as the UN agencies, where MOFA maintains jurisdiction over contributions to the UN (Hasegawa 1975: 131, 137; Kawai and Takagi 2001: 2). This suggests that the impact of the international system on domestic politics constrains an entire range of domestic behaviours (Gourevitch 1978: 882–3, 911). Thus, international factors can have a different effect on domestic politics depen...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Routledge Contemporary Japan Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of tables and figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Glossary of abbreviations
• Part I Introduction
• Part II Approaches to Africa and IR theories
• Part III The TICAD process
• Part IV Japanese aid to Africa: Case studies
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index