![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
Japan has been a principal player in international assistance to Afghanistan, ranked second only to the United States in its overall financial assistance disbursed since 2002. This article places a spotlight on the largely underappreciated subject of Japan's primarily non-military and economic infrastructure-oriented assistance by articulating three major characteristics of Japan's policies and practices in Afghanistan — relatively large disbursements for reconstruction programmes, designating disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration as Japan's niche area, and substantial reliance on international organisations for fund disbursement. Despite its comparatively advantageous position vis-à-vis other donors, Japan has faced a set of institutional and structural impediments to carrying out effective stabilisation and reconstruction assistance, not just in Afghanistan, but also in other conflict-prone and fragile societies. These include, among other things, the shortage of expertise, bureaucratic pressure for ‘cash burning’, inter-agency coordination problems, and waning political interest. As a result, this article argues that Japan has been underequipped to provide peacebuilding assistance on the large scale it committed in Afghanistan. If Tokyo hopes to safeguard its major investments in Afghanistan, it needs to revive the substantive political leadership it exercised in the early years of Afghan peacebuilding.
Acknowledgements
For this research, the author received generous financial support from the Japan Foundation/SSRC's Abe Fellowship and institutional support from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at SAIS, and Keio University in Tokyo.
Notes
1 These three objectives draw on my personal interviews with Japanese officials from MOFA, JICA, and the Cabinet Offices, as well as with members of the Japanese Diet, in Tokyo and Kabul, between 2009 and 2010.
2 It is reported that the SDF vessels also engaged in interdiction activities under the OEF, inspecting vessels regarded as suspicious.
3 DPJ opposed the SDF operation in the Indian Ocean, arguing that Japan's international efforts should be channelled through the UN, not the US, and it may violate the Constitution, which prohibits the use of force in solving international disputes.
4 In addition to these three features, there has been growing project-based cooperation with other donor countries, not just those of major western donors such as the United States and Sweden, but also those of non-western donors including Iran and Turkey, which can be considered as another characteristic feature of Japan's Afghan assistance. Given the space constraints, however, this article concentrates on these three features as most significant.
5 After 2013, MOFA stopped including these details about sector-based disbursement breakdown in its periodic report on Afghan assistance. The reason is unknown, and accordingly, the discussion on Japan's disbursement allocation in this section is based on data relating to the period between 2001 and 2012.
6 Data from UNDP Afghanistan, Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan (LOTFA): http://www.af.undp.org/content/afghanistan/en/home/operations/projects/crisis_prevention_and_recovery/lotfa/, accessed 3 April 2014.
7 During the first year of the APRP process, about 1,700 illegal combatants publicly joined the programme, and reintegration has been undertaken in 16 provinces (ISAF Citation2011).
8 Based on statistics from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, ODA White Papers, 2007–2013. Before 2006, the ODA White Paper did not include grants disbursed through international organisations to a single recipient country in the bilateral grant category.
9 Personal interviews with MOFA officials in charge of Afghan assistance, between 2010 and 2014, in both Kabul and Tokyo. To be sure, these officials also referred to Japan's longstanding support for the UN and the growing call for donor coordination in reconstruction and development assistance. But they invariably admitted to the author that these budgetary and logistic matters are the major and immediate causes for Japan's substantial use of UN channels.
10 Ibid.
11 Personal interviews with German foreign ministry officials, September 2011, and a US official, November 2011.
12 This was particularly the case between 2009 and 2010, during which time US–Japan relations became unusually tense, due to a severe disagreement over the relocation of US military bases in Okinawa. Personal interviews with US State Department officials and MOFA officials, Washington, DC and Tokyo, in 2010.
13 Personal interviews with various Afghan government officials, academics and NGO workers in Afghanistan, July 2010, in Washington DC in 2013 and 2014. For the high recognition of Japan's assistance among the general Afghan population, see the latest survey by The Asia Foundation (The Asia Foundation Citation2013, 55–57).
14 Yet, it is rather notable in the case of such a major donor country as Japan, the fifth largest in terms of overall ODA spending globally. Personal interviews with officials from the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the UNDP, and the UK's Department for International Development (DFID), Kabul, June–July 2010.
15 Personal interview with officials and practitioners from development agencies based in Afghanistan, including DFID, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Afghan officials from Ministry of Finance, June–July 2010.
16 Ibid. Also personal interview with Afghan's Ministry of Finance officials, June–July 2010, February 2014.
17 This point was particularly emphasised by those who worked at international or Afghan NGOs in Kabul and Herat, but also noted by officials from western and international donor agencies, such as DFID, UNAMA and the ADB, based in Kabul.
18 Personal interviews with Afghan officials including the former Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul and officials from other donor countries, between 2009 and 2014.
19 Personal interviews with Afghan officials from various ministries, officials from DFID, the US embassy, UNAMA, and members of NGOs in Kabul, June–July 2010. MOFA's own review also pointed out JICA's excessive procedural requirements as a hindrance to timely programme execution (MOFA Citation2006, xviii, 116).
20 Personal interviews with JICA senior officials supervising JICA's Afghan programme, October 2010 and December 2011, Tokyo.
21 Referring to JICA's resistance, one mid-ranking MOFA official expressed frustration, stating ‘I sometimes find JICA's leaders as if they are my foe.’ Discussions on these different areas of emphasis between MOFA and JICA are drawn from my personal interviews between 2010 and 2012, as well as from the record of JICA's projects in Afghanistan (available ODA White Papers, 2002–2013).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Kuniko Ashizawa
KUNIKO ASHIZAWA, PhD, teaches international relations at School of International Service, American University, Washington, DC. She is the recent author of Japan, the U.S. and Regional Institution-Building in the New Asia: When Identity Matters (Palgrave Macmillan).