SEMINARS

Training and education in international affairs:
Japan, Palestine and the Middle East (1999)

Japan's Contribution to Palestinian Society

It is very difficult to assess the extent to which Japan’s contribution has served the Palestinian people. Much of our work involves direct coor­dination and cooperation with the UNDP, the reason being that when the Government of Japan first began to support the Palestinian people, it did not have the tools to materialize its willing­ness to help and it was the UNDP that realized Ja­pan’s contribution on the ground.

To discover the extent to which Japan’s contri­bution has served the Palestinian people so far requires careful evaluation. Not a single party has yet evaluated the outcome of the past five years of donor contribution, which is a huge task, although we are thinking about doing an evaluation soon. One thing I want to stress is that Japan has a genuine desire to do something positive for the Palestinian society, and we want to ensure that any improvements have a direct impact on the daily lives of the greatest possible number of Palestinians.

I have often been asked the following question: Compared with the European assistance to the Palestinian people, Japan’s contribution is very low-key, so why is Japan not doing more to pub­licize its projects? It is indeed true that many people are not fully aware of what Japan is doing on the ground, but this does not really bother us, because we are not here to conduct a publicity campaign, but to help people who are in need. If our approach is diplomatically ‘incorrect’, then so be it.

Before I go into the details of what Japan is do­ing on the ground, I will briefly touch upon its official development aid policy. The world is changing dramatically, and the interdependent relations have been changing in every field. No longer can any single country, including Japan, afford to pursue its own security and prosperity in isolation from the rest of the world. Japan has no resources at all, which is why the basic for­eign policy of the Japanese is to protect its trade relations by having good relations with every country and to contribute in maintaining peace and stability all over the world.

In 1992, Japan adopted a so-called overseas de­velopment assistance charter, which serves as a sort of guideline for Japanese overseas assis­tance. It is based on the recognition that overseas devel­opment assistance should help maintain and even increase the pace of growing independ­ence and help shape a more desirable interna­tional com­munity. In the end, this of course will be in Japan’s interest, and in the interest of its citizens. Therefore, we are now addressing vari­ous global issues, such as poverty, social and economic serv­ices, and the deterioration of the environment, amongst others.

One very basic condition of Japan’s policy is that Japan will not become a military power, so in that sense, our assistance has a great signifi­cance. Japan has the means and the tools of di­plomacy, and we believe that Japan’s national interest in the end will be in the stability of the international community. That is the basic prin­ciple of Japanese economic assistance.

Japanese overseas development assistance is built on four major pillars:

1.     The necessity of aid coordination among donors;

2.     The importance of both the individual and comprehensive approach;

3.     Adopting a balanced development ap­proach, which means economical and so­cial devel­opment should be balanced with environ­mental protection;

4.     South-south cooperation, which means one developing country will assist another de­vel­oping country.

Specifically speaking, some of the more impor­tant issues that need to be addressed are global problems and basic human needs, human re­sources development, infrastructure improve­ment, and economic structural adjustments. It is in that context that Japan is formulating its as­sistance policy, and one of the important ele­ments we consider in formulating our policy is basic human needs, the people’s needs, which necessitates determining whether every project we undertake actually reflects people’s needs.

Many people ask why Japan is focusing on the Middle East, in spite of it being so far away. There are two main answers. First, Japan’s secu­rity is secured by its having good relations with all countries. Second, Japan depends on trade, not only on export but also on import. For example, 80 percent of Japan’s oil comes from this area, which is why Japan is eager to see stability prevail in the Middle East.

In the Middle East, the major conflict is the con­flict that exists here. Once this conflict is solved in one way or another, it will be much easier for Japan and other countries to address other issues, including political ones. In 1993, the Palestini­ans provided the entire world with a new op­portunity when they opened the door with brave and courageous determination, and Japan was eager to respond to that courage, which is why Japan is focusing on this area.

I do not like to refer to Japan’s activities in this area as a ‘contribution’, because it is not for me to say if our activities are contributing positively to others’ lives or not. That is something that only the recipients can assess.

Although we are now actively involved in the peace process, including the political process, this was not the case before 1991 when the peace process started and when our involvement in the political process was strengthened. One of the major activities today is our activity in the mul­tilateral working group framework. Ambassador Nogami was a so-called spearhead of Japanese diplomacy in those days; he was the first gavel holder or chairman of the Environmental Work­ing Group. Japan achieved the first visible results in this framework, including the Environmental Code of Conduct for the Middle East, which was adopted in October 1994 during the Bahrain Meeting and is now considered one of the major achievements of this working group. Japan is also involved in the Economic Development Working Group. There is a subgroup involved in tourism, which established the Middle East and Mediterranean Travel and Tourism Association in October 1995 in Amman, and Japan is a shep­herd of the workshop on tourism. Therefore, our activities in the multilateral working group con­stitute one area of our activity.

The second area of Japanese activity is economic support to the Palestinian people and support to the surrounding countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. According to our way of thinking, any peace here will not last unless the surrounding environment is stable, which ex­plains why we are also concentrating on the neigh­boring countries.

The third area of Japanese activity is actual peace­keeping. Since February 1996, Japan has sent 45 soldiers to the Golan Heights to take part in peacekeeping operations under the umbrella of the United Nations Disengagement and Ob­server Force (UNDOF), which was established in 1974 after the Kissinger shuttle diplomacy be­tween Syria and Israel.

With regard to what we are actually doing for the Palestinian people, in September 1993, there was a conference in Washington dealing with support to the Palestinians following the signing of the Oslo I Agreement. At the meeting, US$2.4 billion was pledged by various donors, including Japan, which pledged US$200 million over two years, a tendency that has continued for the last five years. At a more recent meeting, which took place last November in Washington, Japan pledged to continue its support to the Palestini­ans for the coming two years. Not a single country, except the United States, agreed to make five-year pledges, and they all restricted themselves to mak­ing one, two, or three-year pledges. I hope that the tendency of the Japanese government to contribute US$200 million over two years will continue.

The money is distributed through two channels: through United Nations (UN) organizations, such as the UNDP or the UNRWA, and through the bilateral channel.

Japanese funding reaches most sectors, although we tend to concentrate on the health and educa­tion infrastructures and on the social-economic infrastructure, in addition to the field of institu­tion building. One of the characteristics of Japa­nese assistance to the Palestinian people is the large amount of money involved in the contribu­tions through UN organizations: out of assis­tance totaling US$400 million, some US$300 has gone through UN organizations. There are several rea­sons for this, the most im­portant being that when the Palestinians first established their own insti­tutions, they needed assistance and they needed it quickly. Therefore, Japan decided that using the international or­ganizations would prove a more reliable way of allowing projects to mate­rial­ize as quickly as possible.

Concerning our attempts to help train Palestini­ans, we established trilateral cooperation with Egypt several years ago and we have sent many Palestinians there to benefit from the expertise of the Egyptian trainers. We have also sent Pales­tinians to Jordan to be trained in telecommuni­cations. These are the south-south cooperation types of training on which Japan is concentrat­ing. Last year, for example, about 60-70 Pal­es­tinians were sent to Jordan, Egypt or Singa­pore.

One type of important overseas assistance is loan assistance, involving low-interest, long-term re­payment schedule loans. The reason why the Japanese have not yet implemented such a pro­gram is that the financial situation in Palestinian institutions is not solid enough to allow them to repay their debts. Many developing countries are suffering enormously because they are paying off so many debts, and Japan decided that it should refrain from burdening the Palestinians with any further financial commitments.

In general, the size of our bilateral grants for the larger projects ranges between US$2 million and US$20 million. Smaller scale projects, which are carried out in coordination with UN agencies, range in cost from between US$500,000 and US$3-4 million. Meanwhile, the ceiling for the Japanese grassroots program is much smaller. Using these three categories of assistance, Japan can cover all the different types of projects: small community-based projects through grant aid, medium-sized projects through UN agen­cies, and bigger projects, like Jericho Hospital, through our bilateral grants aid.

One point I would like to stress - because I know that there has been a lot of speculation about the fate of large amounts of donor assis­tance - is that there is no misuse whatsoever of Japanese aid. Why? Because we are ex­tremely careful. What happens with regard to our bilat­eral grant aid is that we sign an agreement with the Palestinian Authority (PA), after which a special account is opened for the project in a bank in Japan while the PA authorizes the bank to use the money for the particular project. Next, the PA signs a com­mercial con­tract with a Japanese company and the project begins. Of course, the Japanese com­pany will need some money at the start of the project, maybe in the middle and certainly at the end, and the payment is made based on the authori­zation of payment issued by the PA. Based on the authori­zation it already possesses, the bank will then issue the money, and if the Japanese com­pany is using a Palestinian com­pany as a sub-contractor, it will pass the money on. What all this means is that the PA never actually sees the money. This is the way we operate all over the world.

There are several interesting projects Japan is im­plementing with the UNDP, one of which in­volves hiring Palestinian professionals living abroad on a contract basis and bringing them to this area to work with the PA. This is a very unique and creative project, created by the UNDP, of which we are extremely proud. In fact, the World Bank is now implementing a similar type of project.

Another interesting project we are carrying out with the UNDP is the Local Rural Development Program. The local community in the Jenin area, for instance, formulated a sort of council, came up with a project, and then implemented it under the supervision of the UNDP using a small amount of local money but mainly funds from Japan. The people themselves participate in the project implementation, and the fact that they feel that the projects are their own is very im­portant.

We are doing our best, but to be quite honest, we sometimes feel very frustrated, not least of all because of the lack of communication inside many institutions. In some ministries, there is no communication and information sharing at all, even in the different departments, which is a great pity. I receive many letters every day ask­ing for something. Of course, Japan wants its money to be utilized as efficiently as possible, which is one of the reasons why it believes that there should be a more efficient coordination mechanism that reflects people’s needs.

Participant: How would you explain this lack of communication? Is it the result of a desire by high-ranking officials to maintain all the power?

Mr. Hayashi: Information is a source of power, and a strong link with any donor is also a source of power, but people have to understand that holding on to too much power can be a very destructive thing. They have to learn that the answer to many problems is teamwork.

Participant: I have been working with the Pal­estinian Ministry of Industry since 1994. I know from personal experience that if I seek Japanese help with regard to a certain project, I will be told to go to the Ministry of Planning and In­terna­tional Cooperation (MOPIC) and contact you through them, which means that a mecha­nism does exist.

Mr. Hayashi: MOPIC is the window ministry but this does not stop people from calling on us.

Dr. Mahdi Abdul Hadi: If I may clarify, the system is blind, and it is only one or two people who really know what is going on and what is needed but they have no intention of working as part of a team. How can we develop communi­cations within a ministry if everyone, excluding one or two officials, is totally ignorant about what is going on between the ministry and Ja­pan? If everything is in one person’s hands, there is always the danger that he will one day leave, taking everything with him.

Participant: I disagree. If we are imple­menting a two-year program, it means that there is a com­mitment to this program by all the min­isters, guided by MOPIC. Nothing is going to fall apart if one person is away; all those par­ticipating in the project know exactly what is going on.

Mr. Hayashi: The point I am trying to make is that information sharing is very important in any institution.

Participant: The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) is aware of this problem. It realizes that there is no coordination or communication, which is why it established procedures so that heads of depart­ments will all take part in a weekly meet­ing and each department holds a meeting every morning.

Mr. Hayashi: I have been working in this area for some time, and I can say in all honesty that working with Palestinians is often enjoy­able be­cause if I ask something, my question is usually met with a response, which is very good. In ad­dition, people are very keen to deal with their own future, which is also very good. Fortu­nately, you do not have a bad bureaucracy and there is every possibility that you could create quite an effi­cient system, which is why we are doing our best to help you. But all we can do is to prepare the environment - how you utilize it is up to you. It is you who must decide your future.

Participant: What are you doing to help Pales­tinian tourism?

Mr. Hayashi: For example, we have played a role in the Bethlehem 2000 project by contrib­uting to the rehabilitation of the city through the UNDP.

Participant: How do you decide how much as­sistance is to be channeled to a certain field? For example, tourism is very vital to the Palestinian economy, but you have granted it less than one percent of your total assistance to the Palestini­ans.

Mr. Hayashi: Japanese contri­bution to tourism is low because tourism depends largely on the pri­vate sector and there are not many things that the government institutions can do in this field.

Participant: You do not seem to give much as­sistance to the private sector, for example, by helping the Chambers of Commerce, etc.

Mr. Hayashi: No, the recipients of our assistance are NGOs or Palestinian institutions, not private sector companies. This is because the Govern­ment of Japan’s policy is that the assistance money comes from the taxpayer’s money and, this being the case, it should not be used to facilitate the making of commercial profit.

Participant: Would you consider supporting: some kind of college concentrating on textile technology, for example?

Mr. Hayashi: I don’t think so, not because we do not consider this sector important, but because we are lacking the ‘keys’ to support it. For in­stance, some countries have a program like de­mocracy support, or human rights support, and they can utilize the money available very flexi­bly, but we do not have that kind of scheme.

Participant: The people here feel the presence of the Americans and French, for example, through their cultural centers. This is not the case with the Japanese. I think you need to do a lot more to make people understand more about Japan.

Mr. Hayashi: Yes, I admit that we are at fault. Until I took up my post, only two people were dealing with assistance, and unfortunately, they did not have the capacity to extend their activi­ties to cultural areas. We are currently in the process of enlarging our staff and have gradually started to organize more cultural activities in a bid to introduce the Palestinians to something about Japan, which is one of the reasons why we decided to take part in this seminar.

Participant: Do you expect there will be an increase or decrease in Japanese assistance to the Palestinians, and particularly their infrastructure projects, over the next five years?

Mr. Hayashi: In Japan, like elsewhere in the world, the government is always trying to con­vince the domestic audience of the importance of our overseas assistance with regard to security, etc. Naturally, when the domestic economic situa­tion is deteriorating, it becomes very hard to con­vince public opinion of the value of con­tinu­ing this sort of aid.

Participant: To what extent is Japan’s political approach to this region tied to its reliance on oil?

Mr. Hayashi: Without its imports and exports, Japanese society could not function. The global political system changed dramatically in the 1980s, particularly in the mid-1980s. Everybody thought that the problem you are facing here was impossible to solve. However, you gave the world community hope in 1993, which is why we bet on you – the Palestinians and Israelis – and your ability to succeed in this endeavor.

Participant: What is the ceiling of the grassroots projects?

Mr. Hayashi: US$70,000.

Dr. Rosemary Hollis: Are projects brought to the attention of the Japanese Government through the embassy?

Mr. Hayashi: After we have received the request from one of the Palestinian ministries, we dis­cuss the matter further with the PA and then, on the basis of these discussions, we decide whether the project should be implemented or not. After that, we send technical teams to the region at least twice to conduct surveys and seek the ad­vice of other donors with experience in the same field. This all takes about a year. Assuming that we are convinced that the project is feasible, and based on the surveys, we then commit ourselves.

I realize that the Palestinians often get frustrated with us because they have to wait such a long time for an answer, but these procedures are necessary in order to make sure that the projects are worthwhile. The most difficult problem is not actually constructing the facility, but main­taining and managing it once it is built.

Dr. Hollis: Grassroots projects, in some cases, are presumably presented by the NGOs. How is their approach to presenting new projects differ­ent to that of the PA?

Mr. Hayashi: For grassroots projects, the NGOs contact us directly, not through the PA. Educa­tion is the only area where things are coordi­nated with the PA. At the beginning of each fiscal year, we discuss with officials from the Ministry of Edu­cation which rehabilita­tion projects should be given priority. Sometimes, however, we work independently.

Participant: What type of communication chan­nels do you use in Japan? Is it a top to bottom or bottom to top system?

Mr. Hayashi: In Japan, the bottom to top system prevails, and I realize that many people in other countries find it very difficult to comprehend how this actually works. In Japan, it is the desk offi­cers at the various ministries who formulate poli­cies and guidelines, etc. Once these policies and guidelines are formulated, the desk officer con­cerned will raise his idea in front of his di­rectors, who, if they approve, will take it to the director-general level, from where, if necessary, it will be go to the deputy minister level and maybe even to the ministerial level. In many cases, policies are formulated and implemented at the director level. We have, needless to say, capable, creative and energetic desk officers, many of whom are still in their thirties.

Participant: What do the people at the top do?

Mr. Hayashi: They concentrate mainly on issues that are vital to the Japanese interest. We know if a particular issue should be raised at the minis­terial level or not. For instance, Japan’s pledge of US$200 million would go to the ministerial level, but whether or not a small contribution should go to an NGO would be a decision made even at the deputy director level.

Dr. Abdul Hadi: The European countries often consult with one another and debate and develop various positions regarding how to support - or not support - the peace proc­ess. Do the Japanese engage in consultation with other countries?

Mr. Hayashi: Yes, there is an ongoing dialogue with the European countries, not only concern­ing economic issues but concerning other issues as well. There is also a local donors committee, which meets to discuss various issues.

Participant: Is Japan as militarily insignificant as it claims to be?

Mr. Hayashi: We have forces to defend the coun­try, but any kind of involvement abroad is a very sensitive issue. Before sending the 45 Japa­nese soldiers to the Golan Heights, there was a huge argument in Japan, with mothers asking the government, “Are you going to send my son to the battlefield again?” The Japanese people are fed up with war.

Dr. Abdul Hadi: In the United States there is the FBI and the CIA, in England MI5 and MI6, and in Israel the Shin Bet and the Mossad. What kind of intelligence do you have in Japan?

Mr. Hayashi: Intelligence is one of our weakest areas, one of the reasons being the fact that our intelligence system was dismantled by the Ameri­cans after World War II. There are four or five small institutions, but compared to those existing elsewhere in the world, they are rela­tively limited.

Participant: To what extent is it possible for Japan’s financial assistance to give Japan influ­ence in the Middle East, bearing in mind that it has a limited military capability? As far as I can see, Japan’s influence on the Middle East Peace Process is relatively insignificant because its political decisions are influenced by the United States; one only has to look to the Gulf War for proof of this. I would say that in most of the important matters, the United States has had some influence on Japan’s decisions.

Participant: I do not believe that the fact that Japan does or does not have any military power is really that important. I think that what really matters at this point is the money that we are receiving from Japan. If Japan came and told us, “If you don’t do this or that we are not going to give you any more money,” whether we like it or not, we are going to do what Japan wants. The same applies to our reactions to the demands of any other of the large donors because of the weakness of our current situation.

Participant: I have the feeling that Japan often hides behind the United States and that if it really wanted to, it is fully capable of making choices that are different to those of America, such as those it made in the 1970s, when it sup­ported the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and allowed a PLO office to open in Ja­pan.

Dr. Hollis: I am wondering if, based on what I am hearing now, the fact is that Japan cannot win, because on the one hand, even if it puts money into practical developmental grants it is going to be criticized for not having a high enough politi­cal profile, whereas on the other hand, if it were to adopt a higher political pro­file, then the ad­vantage of Japan being simply a donor and of prac­tical use would disap­pear and everybody would be asking, “What’s their agenda, what do they really want to hap­pen, etc, etc.?” Do you, the par­ticipants, think that the roads, sewers, and the train­ing pro­grams etc., will establish good­will towards Japan distinct from its policy position and have an effect on Palestinian devel­opment?

Participant: My personal belief is that Japan is trying to translate its huge economical power into political power, not just here but all over the world, mainly because it wants to be ‘Number One’ in East Asia and because it wants the re­ceiving countries to say in the future, “We re­member what Japan did for us.”