Governance
A - Overview
Since the 1990s governance has been a focus of attention as something that can have an impact on the effectiveness of development assistance. We believe that governance should be pursued so that the entire system for inputting, distributing, and managing resources in a country efficiently while reflecting the opinions of the public can be built and operated for national stability and development.
Governance in developing countries is an important condition for determining the effectiveness of economic assistance and we are thus committed to contributing to economic development by giving good impact on the entire system of developing countries while supporting governance through technical cooperation.
B - Our Efforts
We place importance on efforts of the government of the developing country to improve governance and promote the progress and institution of democratization with their ownership and initiative. To that end, we take two approaches—one for offering options and one for thinking together—in assisting the developing country with selecting, building, and operating systems themselves while providing information and having a dialogue in support of an endogenous process of reformation. Our specific roles are as follows:
a) To provide options for institution-building and evoke a change in awareness of governmental organizations and the people involved
b) To support the creation of new systems
c) To support the development of measures and methods to operate the systems, organizational improvement, and human development.
Specifically our assistance in the governance field covers the following three categories: building democratic systems, improving administrative functions, and development of legal systems.
1. Building Democratic Systems
Support for building democratic systems focuses not on building systems closely related to political values, but on nurturing awareness of issues among the people involved and promoting changes in their awareness by introducing systems and institutions of various countries, and showing options. One example is the Seminar on Democracy and Good Governance.
2. Improving Administrative Functions
Support for improving administrative functions focuses on contributing to improved administrative functions, the promotion of balanced decentralization of power, and promoting citizens’ participation and improving transparency. In support of contributing to improved administrative functions, assistance for improving statistics capacity of the government is being implemented.
In support of contributing to promoting balanced decentralization, Regional Development Policies for Local Government and Human Resources Development for Local Governance are being implemented.
In support of contributing to promotion of citizens’ participation and improvement of transparency, capacity building of auditors is being implemented.
3. Development of Legal Systems
Support for legal systems focuses on developing basic laws, including civil law and commercial law to promote the transition to a market economy or establish the rule of law.
4. Gender Support
From the viewpoint of reviewing social and economic structures, systems, and policies as the source of gender disparity, we provide gender support. In some areas where conflict has ended, we are implementing support for the economic empowerment of women through community development with the counterpart, the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
In developing countries, we are assisting staff members of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs with various skills from data collection and analysis in gender statistics to policy making, implementation, and evaluation.