Local Governments have been playing a crucial role in pollution control in Japan since the 1960s. Since the prioritization of environmental projects in Japan's ODA, the experience and technologies of Japan's local governments have been important in providing technical assistance to developing countries which face similar pollution problems as Japan did.
From 1991 to 1996, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Environment Agency of the national government was only able to respond to less than 20% of requests of developing countries for the dispatch of urban environmental management officials. JICA dispatched 240 experts of whom 89 (37%) were local government officials. Yet, with over ten thousand environmental officials employed by Japan's local governments, a better utilization of this human resource should make it possible for Japanese ODA to better serve the needs of the developing countries.
International cooperation between the local governments in Japan and those in developing countries has recently become active. Some local governments have even established their own institutions for international environmental cooperation. A number of Japanese local governments are cooperating with Chinese local governments most of which are their sister cities.
The environmental cooperation between Kitakyushu City in Japan and Dalian City in China in the preparation of the “Environmental Master Plan for Dalian” involved an innovative approach for local governments. Unlike most of those programs which are dependent upon budgetary constraints, they successfully extended their financial capability by implementing their program as a JICA's development research program. This plan involves some infrastructure projects, taking the possibility of loans from the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) or international lending institutions into account.
It is, however, still often difficult for local governments to launch international cooperation projects even when they have been requested by the Japanese national government. Because the Local Government Law does not stipulate that international cooperation is a local government responsibility, the administrative departments of many local governments are reluctant to take a new role which their neighbors have not assumed. Further encouragement by the national government and the establishment of forums to exchange information is needed to facilitate their cooperation.
