# Japan's Official Development

Assistance in Terms of Disbursement

Photo: Kenshiro Imamura/JICA

Japan’s net bilateral ODA disbursements (Note 1) in 2008 totaled approximately US$6,823.25 million (approximately ¥706.2 billion). Japan’s contributions to international organizations totaled approximately US$2,755.86 million (approximately ¥285.2 billion) in 2008. These figures make for a 24.7% increase to approximately US$9,579.10 million in 2008, compared with overall ODA disbursements in the previous year (approximately a 9.6% increase compared to the previous year on a yen base, to approximately ¥991.4 billion). With regard to gross disbursements, bilateral ODA disbursements totaled approximately US$17,452.92 million. This represented an increase by roughly 28.6% (approximately a 13% increase on a yen base to approximately ¥1,806.4 billion) on the previous year.

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Japan’s 2008 ODA net disbursements ranked fifth, behind the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France, amongst the members of OECD-DAC $ ^{\text{(Note 2)}} $ member countries. While Japan remained in fifth place as in 2007, its ODA disbursements rose for the first time in the last three years, and its rate of increase was the highest among the G7 countries. In gross disbursements, Japan rose from third place to second place. The main factors for the increase in ODA gross disbursements (on a dollar base) were an increase in contributions to multilateral organizations (up 45% compared to the previous year) and high yen.

A breakdown of 2008 ODA disbursements (net base) shows that bilateral ODA accounted for roughly 71.2% of overall disbursements, while ODA via international organizations accounted for approximately 28.8%. Bilateral ODA, which is provided after discussions are held with developing countries, is to strengthen the relationship between Japan and recipient countries. Provision of ODA via international organizations enables them to use their specialized knowledge and political neutrality, and to support countries and regions that are difficult to reach on a bilateral level. Japan flexibly uses bilateral assistance and assistance via international organizations, while instituting collaborations between these two means and ensuring the manner of assistance is adequate.

A breakdown of net bilateral ODA by method indicates that disbursements calculated as grant aid totaled approximately US$4,776.56 million, amounting to roughly 49.9% of overall ODA disbursements. Of this amount, debt relief accounted for US$2,801.18 million at roughly 29.2%; grant aid through international organizations accounted for around 7.6% at US$730.06 million; and funds provided by Japan for grant aid excluding other aforementioned categories accounted for about 13% of the total at US$1,245.32 million. Additionally, technical cooperation accounted for around 31.2% at roughly US$2,987.07 million; loan aid amounted to approximately US$-940.38 million (Note 3); and loan aid excluding debt relief amounted to approximately US$123.15 million.

Japan’s bilateral ODA by region is as follows. $ ^{(Note\ 4)} $

Asia: Approximately US$1,073.68 million (approximately US$7,507.58 million)

▶ Africa: Approximately US$1,395.70 million (approximately US$1,495.61 million)