ザンビア農業分野における援助事業の現状と課題

―セクター・プログラムASIP が残した教訓と我が国援助事業への一提言―

抄録

Zambia was an early innovator of adopting a sector-wide program for the agricultural sector in the early 1990s. “Agricultural Sector Investment Program (ASIP)” was implemented for six years from 1996 to 2001, under the leadership of the World Bank. The Zambian ASIP received attention from donor community as one of the firstimplemented sector-wide programs for agricultural sector development in Africa. However, its performance was not very satisfactory, with most major objectives unachieved. Impact on the poverty alleviation in rural areas was particularly disappointing. While sector-wide programs have been regarded as an effective way of enhancing ownership of recipient countries and harmonizing donor-funded projects/programs, the experience of the Zambian ASIP has shown that their implementation in the agricultural sector is more difficult than expected.

Having observed poor performance of the ASIP, many donors appear to have been discouraged from promoting donor coordination in the Zambian agricultural sector. It is observed that they tend to avoid direct assistance to the Ministry of Agriculture and implement their programs/projects by establishing independent implementation units outside the government structure. This is considered mainly due to low management capacity of the Ministry, particularly in financial management that was exposed during the ASIP implementation period. However, this situation is not appreciated since it will further deteriorate the government capacity.

On the other hand, Japanese technical assistance projects are traditionally based on the government-centered counterpart approach. This is related with Japan's ODA policy that has been emphasizing “self-efforts” and “self-help” of the governments of recipient countries. Although this approach could be effective in strengthening the government capacity, it is not necessarily the most effective way of realizing the development impact on poverty alleviation within a limited period since it usually takes a long time to improve the capacity of the government.

Accordingly, it is essential for the Government of Japan to establish an effective and efficient approach of implementing assistance projects while promoting coordination of other donors' activities in the sector. In doing so, lessons from the experience of the ASIP have to be taken into account.