Inclusive and dynamic development

This is the last of my columns in the ‘Learning from Japan’ series. In Pakistan, there have been numerous interventions by international donor agencies mostly in health and education sectors and many of these interventions have not been able to produce the desired results.

As a development-sector practitioner, this writer has been an eyewitness to dozens of such projects where the donors themselves contribute to the failures of their projects. The Japan International Cooperation Agency appears to be slightly different as its focus makes its projects more relevant to the ground realities in Pakistan.

On my recent visit to Japan, I had an opportunity to visit the central office of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and interact with their high officials to understand their strategy of work in South Asia, particularly in Pakistan. It will be of interest to the readers to know about JICA which mostly keeps a low profile in Pakistan and quietly does its work without placing any advertisements in newspapers as some other donors do. Japan’s official development assistance towards Pakistan is 65 years old but not many people know about it.

Since 1954, Japan has cooperated in the economic and social development of Pakistan. Some of the sectors where Japan has worked with Pakistan are agriculture, disaster management, education, environment, health, industry, irrigation, and investment. As per the global agenda of JICA, it focuses on reducing poverty through equitable growth, improving governance, and achieving human security. JICA’s first priority area in Pakistan is the improvement of economic infrastructure. Since power shortages in Pakistan have been a major problem, Japan is helping Pakistan in curbing chronic electricity problems. This is done by establishing an efficient and sustainable electric supply system in the country.

In addition, Japan also provides assistance for transportation infrastructure for efficient domestic and international connectivity; poverty reduction; improvement in productivity of agricultural produce; and strengthening the industrial sector including improvement of investment climate and export promotion.

Of course, this cannot be done without ensuring human security and improvement of social infrastructure. Therefore, Japan extends assistance to Pakistan in the field of basic education and in technical training to generate employment opportunities and economic growth. It also contributes to improving the poor conditions of water and sanitation especially in the urban areas, and improving health services in communities including programmes for eradication of polio.

Since Japan is a calamity-prone country, it specializes in disaster management; in Pakistan too JICA helps in strengthening capabilities of disaster management to respond to frequent natural calamities. Politically speaking, balanced and stable regional development is also a priority area of JICA, as Japan has seen and suffered the results of instability in border regions. Japan delivers assistance to meet the affected areas’ needs, and contributes to trade and the economic cooperation of Pakistan with its neighbouring countries in view of stability in the entire South Asian region. JICA also extends assistance to underdeveloped regions to avoid social unrest caused by regional disparities.

The Kohat Tunnel, built with Japan’s help, is an ideal example of JICA’s cooperation in Pakistan. Japan’s technical cooperation to Pakistan focuses on capacity development and Japanese experts are sent to Pakistan for the transfer of Japanese knowledge and experience. The technical cooperation is complemented with grant aids and loans. In development terminology, grant aid is financial assistance to support development projects and social sector activities in areas such as health, education and water works. Grant aid is assistance without the obligation of repayment; and Japanese loans are extended on soft terms with low interest rate and long maturity.

Such loans are mostly given towards basic economic and social infrastructure projects for Pakistan’s development. These loans also support poverty reduction through economic growth and capacity and institution building. Let’s take a concrete example of electric power. As we know, the estimated power shortfall is costing Pakistan at least three percent of annual GDP growth. Other issues include expensive electricity production and administrative inefficiency of transmission and distribution. Since 1990, Japan has helped Pakistan in power generation projects including Bin Qasim, Karachi; Jamshoro, Hyderabad, and the Ghazi Brotha Hydropower project.

To reduce power transmission losses, JICA has supported the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) to expand its grid system by building 12 new grid stations, and almost 1500km long transmission lines. It also helped in upgrading training facilities. A major achievement was the conversion of the National Power Control System from analogue to digital, which helps improve governance in the power sector. In power distribution too, JICA has contributed a lion’s share in electrification of over 6000 villages in Pakistan. JICA still needs to extend its cooperation to establish an efficient and sustainable electricity supply system because the chronic shortage of electricity is a big hurdle in social stabilization.

This is true especially for the largest city of Pakistan, Karachi, where not only have outages continued for long periods but poor maintenance has also caused loss of lives by electrocution, as was witnessed during the recent rains in Karachi that took dozens of lives due to live wires that were left dangling or which fell into the rain water. Though JICA has given loans for rural electrification, thermal power station projects, and the Ghazi Brotha Hydropower Project, it should continue its assistance for load dispatch system upgrade and on-grid solar power grid stations to utilize huge solar resources available to Pakistan.

Another area is industry and investment to ensure a competitive industrial base and better investment climate. JICA is helping Pakistan in building a foundation for the manufacturing industry. It mainly focuses on the development of the automobile sector and on the creation of high-value addition and diversification of the manufacturing industry. It also entails adequate policy and regulation, transfer of technology and enhancement of human capacity. A concrete example is the project for technical support to the auto-parts manufacturing industry which aims to transfer technology to local auto-parts manufacturers with the help of Japanese experts who strive to make factories able to export their products to international markets.

Now JICA is also moving to focus on the textile sector, mostly small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The First Micro-Finance Bank of Pakistan (FMFB) is also one of the beneficiaries of Japanese assistance to extend financial services to poor and low-income farmers, micro-entrepreneurs and other citizens of Pakistan to improve their incomes and enhance their quality of life. Interestingly, on my recent visit to Japan I saw Pakistani mangoes being sold in Japanese shops in Tokyo and other cities. It is definitely very good to see that Japan is supporting Pakistani growers and exporters of mangoes to trade with Japanese importers.

Construction technology training institutes and the project for skills development in the garment industry have also been beneficiaries of technical cooperation and grant aids from Japan. Other areas of cooperation that deserve a mention include roads and railways to tackle the transport issue; support for increase of agriculture productivity and improvement of water governance; and strengthening of the public education system. Here JICA takes into consideration a diverse range of issues including literacy, non-formal education, primary to higher education, and TVET (technical education and vocational training). For example in Punjab, JICA has assisted in the development of the non-formal education system which is equivalent to formal primary education level.

Thanks to another project which started in 2015, non-formal education system is being introduced at select schools and centres of the federal government, and the governments of Sindh and Balochistan. I would like to conclude this column by suggesting to JICA that after the 18th Amendment in the constitution of Pakistan, education at all levels has been devolved to the provinces, so it is more important to strengthen provincial capacities especially in Balochistan and Sindh, the two provinces that need Japanese assistance more as their indicators are still pretty low.

Email: mnazir1964@yahoo.co.uk

The writer holds a PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK and works in Islamabad.