Associate Expert (AE) and Junior Professional Officer (JPO), and most of these people continue to work in international organizations after completing the term of their assignment. As described above, many Japanese officials are working in international organizations in posts from executive officer to junior officer (however, the overall number of these officials is noticeably low in proportion to the financial contribution Japan makes, and the government will make continued efforts to increase this number).

Cooperation through international organizations has advantages such as international organizations' experience and expertise, political neutrality, and the ability to provide assistance to countries and regions to which government-based assistance is difficult to deliver. Consequently, in its implementation of assistance, Japan has been effectively combining such cooperation with bilateral assistance. For instance, on the issue of polio eradication in the Western Pacific Region as mentioned earlier, Japan has been mainly providing support in collaboration with UNICEF. As for recent examples of cooperation with international organizations, Japan collaborated with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on developing the electric communications network in Bhutan, carried out the project for improving garbage treatment in Pakistan, provided support for permanent housing for repatriated refugees in Cambodia, and worked on the dredging of Umm Qasr Port, which is a contact point for bringing humanitarian support goods into Iraq.

## Evaluation of Japan's ODA by developing countries

Although the advances in globalization have expanded cross-border economic exchange and led to global economic growth, there are also countries and regions that could not reap the benefits, and in some of these countries, poverty-related problems are worsening. Generally speaking, however, economic situations and living conditions of developing countries have improved significantly over the past few decades. For example, average life expectancy in developing countries viewed over the past 40 years has increased by approximately 20 years, and the infant mortality rate has declined by more than 50%. Furthermore, the adult illiteracy rate has almost halved over the past 30 years, falling from 47% to 25%. The poverty population, consisting of people living on less than one dollar per day, declined from 1.5 billion to 1.2 billion people in the period from 1981 to 2001, and its share of the world's population almost halved, falling from 40% to 21% $ ^{4} $ . Viewing performance for the 1990s by region, it is evident that East Asia achieved average annual income growth per capita of 6.4% and halved the share of its total population living in poverty. In contrast, Africa had average annual income growth per capita of minus 0.4% over the same period, and the share of its total population living in poverty increased from 47.4% to 49.0%. For Africa, the situation does not allow for optimism yet. Viewed by individual country, however, it would be incorrect to say that there are no promising signs, including the achievement of average annual income growth per capita of 3% or more in Cape Verde, Mauritius, Mozambique and Uganda, the achievement of globally unparalleled reductions in starvation in Ghana and Mozambique, and the increase of the net enrollment ratio in primary education by 20 points in Benin. $ ^{5} $

Such improvements in situations are basically brought about by economic growth and social development due to the self-help efforts of developing countries themselves. It is extremely difficult to quantitatively analyze and evaluate the specific extent of the ODA's contribution. However, it is pointed out that assistance promotes economic growth through measures such as developing the investment environment and human resources, which in turn is connected to improving such situations. This is also indicated in the fact that many countries in a variety of forms have expressed senses of trust in and gratitude to Japan regarding its steady efforts to provide development assistance to developing countries such as Asian countries for the past 50 years, and there are also developing countries that wish to learn from Japan's experiences of modernization and economic development to contribute to their own development.

For example, at the Initiative for Development in East Asia (IDEA) held in August 2000 with the participation of the ministers of foreign affairs and ministers in charge of development from the 10 countries of ASEAN, Japan, China and Korea, each participating country expressed high praise and expectations for Japan's ODA. The Japan-ASEAN Commemorative Summit held in Tokyo in December 2003 was a historic summit in which all leaders of the 10 countries of ASEAN gathered in a country outside of ASEAN for the first time. At this summit, also, the leader of each country highly praised the role that Japan's ODA has played in the economic development of ASEAN. In 1981, Malaysia under