From DEBRA@oln.comlink.apc.orgTue Sep 12 08:11:27 1995 Date: Sat, 09 Sep 1995 08:21:00 +0100 From: Debra Guzman Reply to: beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org To: beijing95-l@netcom.com, beijing-conf@tristram.edc.org Subject: WCW: Japan announces new women's initiative [The following text is in the "ISO-8859-1" character set] [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set] [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly] ## Original in: /HRNET/WOMEN ## author : theearthtime@igc.apc.org ## date : 05.09.95 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Japan announces new women's initiative By Elizabeth Bryant Earth Times News Service BEIJING--Japan has announced a new turn to its development strategy: to invest less in infrastructural development Southern countries and more into their peoples, particularly women. During a press conference Tuesday, Norio Hattori, deputy director general for Economic Cooperation of Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs outlined women's education, health and greater economic and social participation as the three areas in which Japan would be targeting future investments. "The direction of Japanese official development assistance has been dramatically changing compared to several years ago," Hattori said, adding that Japan had been criticized in the past for investing heavily for its focus on large-scale building projects. "I think we will have a sea change with regard to women in development," he added. But Miyo Inoue, president of the New Japan Women's Association, said her country's government still had a long way to go. "Japan spends a lot of money for official development assistance, but they don't use it for humans," said Inoue, whose women's group of 250,000 members is the largest in Japan. Instead, Japanese assistance is based less on need and more on political interests, she said. What seems indisputable is the generosity of Japanese foreign aid. Since 1990, Japan's overseas assistance has exceeded $13 billion, making it the world's largest foreign donor, Hattori said. In 1993, the country spent about $600 million for projects targeting women in developing countries. That figure is expected to grow considerably in the next few years, he added. Moreover, Hattori stressed the need to work jointly with other countries in implementing development projects as a way to better use donor dollars. Hattori did not allot specific amounts to education and other targeted areas for assistance, nor did he outline specific countries as recipients of Japanese aid. Rather, he said, "our ODA budget is quite big. It's up to the absorptive capacity of recipient countries." Of the 152 countries receiving Japanese foreign aid, China is the largest beneficiary. So far Japan has poured about $20 billion into China's economic development over the last 16 years, and will add another $6 billion in the next three years.