The money provided by investors consists of half financial backing (donation) and half investments. A person shall be an investor and a donator. Investors can not only receive a part of sales as dividends, but also, as bonus, receive the products produced by business operators, such as a set of food items, and participate in events like tours and experience of their factories. Through these involvements, it is aimed to follow and support the recovery in longer terms.

So far since the raising subscription started in April 2011, individual funds for each business operator who requires money were established in Hokkaido, Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures. And not a few funds have already finished raising required amounts. The total number of participant amounts to 21,000, and nearly 720 million yen has been raised in total (As of May 1, 2012).

## (Wide-area Cooperation/ Inter-regional Cooperation)

As a measure to promote regional rehabilitation and vitalization with declining population in future, it is required to enhance cooperation between regions to generate social vitality through the expansion of interpersonal exchanges and transport of goods from a wide-area perspective. In this public awareness survey, the top answer to the question “Name the fields you think to which the wide-area cooperation measure could be most effective” was “transportation including roads and railways” (29.7%), followed by “disaster prevention” (23.4%) and “environment, waste, and energy” (22.0%).

As for the development of wide-area cooperation in the field of disaster prevention, this catastrophe has widely prompted the introduction of a system to improve local disaster prevention capability.

Located at a point that connects the coasts and inland areas of Sanriku region and with national roads radiating from it, Tono City, Iwate Prefecture, is within an hour's drive to coastline cities of Rikuzentakata, Ofunato and Kamaishi. Because of that, Tono City has

been prepared to tsunami hazards by working out its

logistical support concepts. Immediately after the outbreak of the earthquake, the Tono Athletic Park of the city was opened as the front-line base for the Self-Defense Forces, and teams of police, firefighting and medicine. In addition, the city delivered relief supplies from around the country, and sent volunteers, to stricken areas. Based on this experience, it was approved at the Tono City Disaster Meeting held in March 2012 that the section “Logistical Relief Activities” would be newly added to the amended City’s Regional Disaster Prevention Plan so as to clearly position the relief efforts for tsunami-hit coastline areas of Iwate Prefecture as the city’s “role”. In addition, conclusion of the logistical relief agreement with other local governments and other relevant bodies and enactment of ordinance for logistical relief also are considered currently.

In light of the lessons learned from the Great East Japan Earthquake, municipalities started to consider establishing their ordinances for mutual relief at the time of disaster, aiming to develop the system “horizontal relief” among municipalities (city, special ward, town, village) in time of disaster. Within the year of 2012, the 5 municipalities (city, special ward, town), namely Suginami Ward, Tokyo/South-soma City, Fukushima Pref./Nayoro City, Hokkaido/Ojiya City, Niigata Pref/Higashi-azuma Town, Gunma Pref. aim to enact an ordinance, which would contain provisions such as that, in disaster time, the 5 municipalities shall mutually supply relief goods between them, and also receive victims, and others.