Foreword

The purpose of this report is to compile the experiences of national movements for quality andproductivity improvement (kaizen) in selected countries in Asia and Africa, in order to contribute tothe ongoing efforts by the Ethiopian government to disseminate, scale-up, and institutionalize kaizen.1
At the request of the government of Ethiopia, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)
conducted the Study on Quality and Productivity Improvement in Ethiopia from October 2009 to May
2011. The study supported the implementation of pilot kaizen activities for 28 manufacturing
companies, skill transfer and capacity development of the Ministry of Industry (MOI) staff, and theformulation of a national plan to disseminate kaizen activities for manufacturing companies inEthiopia. Building on the achievements examined in this study, the Ethiopian government has decided
to establish the Ethiopian Kaizen Institute (EKI), which is responsible for promoting kaizen awareness,
assisting companies in quality and productivity improvement, disseminating information on kaizen,and coordinating with other organizations involved in quality and productivity improvement. InNovember 2011, JICA has begun a new technical cooperation project to support the design and initial
implementation stage of the EKI.
The experiences of Japan and the other countries which successfully introduced and disseminatedkaizen confirm the vital importance of changing popular mindset toward hard work, team work andcreativity. Mindset change also enables the spread of kaizen to as many as social actors as possible.
However, in many developing countries, such change does not occur spontaneously. This is why therole of the government is crucial. It is important for the government to make a conscious policy effort
to orchestrate a national movement by involving the entire population and driving the transformationof their attitudes.
Some countries have successfully introduced national movements with brilliant results by creating thenecessary institutional mechanisms and organizing a series of activities for igniting mindset change.
However, there are countries which face challenges sustaining such momentum, especially after thecompletion of donor support. Therefore, it is useful to examine the experiences of national movements
in various countries and extract factors for success and lessons leaned—so that those countries
interested in introducing kaizen, including Ethiopia, can have referential information when theyembark on introducing and diffusing kaizen in their respective countries.

1Kaizen means “continuous improvement” involving the entire workforce from the top management to middle managers andworkers. According to Masaaki Imai (1986), it is not just a management technique but a philosophy which instructs how aperson should conduct his or her life. Kaizen shows how management and workers can change their mindsets together toimprove their productivity. Imai argues that kaizen is an umbrella concept for a large number of Japanese business practices,such as 5S, suggestion system, Quality Control Circle (QCC), Total Quality Management (TQM), the Toyota Production
System, the Just-in-Time System, the Kamban System, etc.

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This report is one of the outputs of the Japan-Ethiopia Industrial Policy Dialogue, which took placefrom June 2009 to May 2011, supported by JICA and with the participation of a team from theNational Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS). Those interested in the issues discussed at theseries of eight bilateral policy dialogues are encouraged to read a separate report, The Study on
Industrial Policy Dialogue in the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (2011).
The report is structured in five chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of national movements and asynthesis of selected country experiences in Asia and Africa. This is followed by case studies on Japan(Chapter 2), Singapore (Chapter 3), Burkina Faso (Chapter 4), and Botswana (Chapter 5). We hopethat it will serve as useful reference for those countries which are contemplating policy initiatives fornurturing a dynamic private sector.

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