Economic Cooperation with Latin America and the Caribbean Japan's Policy on Official Development Assistance to Latin America 1. The series of presidential elections held in Latin American and Caribbean countries since 1994 has strengthened the trend of democratization in the region. Japan has also cooperated in the development of the relevant human resources by holding seminars for research on democracy and training courses on election administration techniques. In addition, Japan is expanding its assistance to countries actively pursuing democratization so as to encourage their efforts. Thanks to the promotion of market-oriented economic reform policies, the Latin American and Caribbean countries' macroeconomic indicators have improved greatly, and now they are generally performing soundly.
Japan intends to offer active support for individual countries' efforts in such fields.
Japan is actively extending both technical cooperation and financial assistance to help Latin American and Caribbean countries in dealing with the serious and variegated problems of the environment, such as depletion of the Amazon rain forest, urban air pollution, wide-area water pollution, and the spread of slums due to the overconcentration of population in cities. This scheme has won high marks as a form of assistance that, while small in scale, is provided flexibly. So far this program has been directed at countries with low per capita incomes, and for this reason many Latin American and Caribbean countries have not been eligible. Grass-roots grant assistance for these countries will be extended to projects that will directly benefit impoverished groups through the provision of basic requirements, such as medical care. Japan intends to offer active support for such activities.