tions, Japan not only contributes funds and makes investments but also actively participates in the decision-making of international organizations. In addition, Japan implements bilateral ODA in collaboration with international organizations. In this way, Japan is strengthening collaboration with international organizations in various forms. In the future, Japan will strengthen collaboration between international organizations with expertise and political neutrality and Japan's ODA, and will also make efforts to appropriately reflect its policy in the operations of these organizations while increasing the efficiency of budgets of international organizations and making Japan's share of the budget appropriate.

Japan holds bilateral aid policy consultations with major donor countries and carries out exchange of views and policy coordination in order to implement ODA in a more strategic, effective, and efficient way.

In particular, Japan and the United States are promoting various kinds of cooperation in development against the

Trunk road from Kandahar toward Kabul constructed through cooperation between Japan and the United States: Afghanistan

backdrop that they share assistance policy such as emphasis on project-type assistance though bilateral assistance, in addition to the backdrop that they develop diplomatic policy in close collaboration as allies. Japan and the U.S. have promoted cooperation in such sectors as health and water in the past, but nowadays, they are also promoting close collaboration towards peace-building efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.

In promoting such cooperation and collaboration, both Japan and the United States have held various consultations between the Economic Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Department of State/United States Agency for International Development (USAID). In addition to this, the "US-Japan Strategic Aid Dialogue Meeting" was launched in Tokyo in November 2003 as a framework for consultation between Japan's Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and U.S. Undersecretary of State for discussing a desirable strategic collaboration between Japan and the United States in the field of development. In this dialogue meeting, both countries are to exchange opinions, including the analysis of the situation, in relation to assistance policy for countries that hold the key from the strategic viewpoint, as well as discuss various development issues that are discussed at the G8, United Nations, and other multilateral forums. At the second meeting held in Washington D.C. in July 2004, Japan and the U.S. agreed that toward the year 2005 when the G8 Summit (July 2005, in Scotland, the United Kingdom) and a summit level meeting at the United Nations (September 2005, in New York) (Mid-term Review of the Millennium Declaration) are scheduled to be held, they would cooperatively cope with various challenges in the field of development, which will be the key issues at these meetings. They also confirmed that they would continue to keep close collaboration in terms of assistance policy for Iraq, Afghanistan, South Asian countries, etc.

In recent years, Japan has also been actively promoting bilateral assistance coordination with the United Kingdom,

which had been in the past considered to take a different stance from Japan in terms of development issues. It is true that Japan and the United Kingdom have different assistance philosophies. For example, while the U.K. assistance policy promotes financial support with the primarily objective set as poverty reduction, Japan emphasizes the importance of economic growth and promotes poverty reduction through economic growth. Due to this, relationships between Japan and the United Kingdom have not always been close in the field of development, though they have maintained friendly bilateral relationships by and large. However, Japan and the United Kingdom shared the recognition of the importance of efforts