For developing countries, aid cannot replace trade. Mutually supportive trade and environmental policies should contribute to the realization of sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to identify the negotiating position of selected Asian developing countries in the Committee on Trade and Environment (CTE) of the WTO. This study reviews their submissions and suggestions for the CTE with regard to its mandate on trade and environment. In addition, using key trade statistics, it explores the relationship between negotiating positions and structural change of international trade in Asian countries. While the CTE has brought about no specific results concerning its mandate, negotiating positions of developing countries are sharply changing. In particular, Asian developing countries now participate proactively in the CTE negotiations. This study shows the diversity of views held by Asian countries on trade and environment. In some cases, their views are opposed to each other. It can also be observed that the negotiating positions of each Asian country at the CTE are closely related to their own trade structure. In accordance with national patterns of trade structure, NIEs countries, China, and India have their own distinct negotiating positions whereas ASEAN countries have not taken the same stance in the CTE negotiations. Each member of ASEAN presents separate views depending on the nature of the issue.

In early 2001, civil war occurred in the Republic of Macedonia. The armed conflict between the government and Albanian rebel organization lasted over half a year. Although it was not a direct cause of the conflict, interethnic income inequality is considered to have contributed to escalating grievances of ethnic minorities in Macedonian society. In fact, it has been widely recognized that economic inequality between groups divided ethnically or geographically in society is one of possible causes of civil war.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the scale and determinants of interethnic income inequality in Macedonia using a set of municipality-level data during the period 1986-95. This investigation relies on two quantitative methods: the decomposition of inequality measures (Theil index and the variance of logarithms) and the regression analysis. In these analyses, per capita social product, a proxy for per capita income is used as an indicator of the municipal income level.

The decomposition of inequality measures by groups reveals that marked income inequality had persisted between two groups: ethnic Macedonian-dominant and ethnic minority-dominant regions. Furthermore, the decomposition by factor components illustrates that interethnic income inequality is attributed to interethnic dispraises in capital stock per capita and the proportion of working population.

The regression analysis shows that the income level depends greatly on the proportion of working population and education level, both of which are significantly correlated with ethnic structure. On the other hand, the regression analysis finds no significant effect of ethnicity on capital stock per capita and labour productivity, with all other conditions controlled. These results suggest that in Macedonia, interethnic income inequality is associated with interethnic disparities in social and religious factors that are reflected in demographic structure, labour market structure and education.

More attention should be paid to the social aspects of disaster prevention projects that will be implemented through development assistance.

For the past 30 years, the rate of natural disasters has increased all over the world. The damage from these disasters has been remarkable in developing countries. Historically development assistance for disaster prevention and reconstruction has prioritized the construction of infrastructure and emergency aid. However, through the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (1990-1999) they have come to recognize the importance of social aspects of disaster. At the United Nations World Conference on Disaster Reduction (2005) they adopted Hyogo Framework for Action (2005-2015), incorporating the importance of developing and strengthening capacities at all levels, particularly at the community level, that can contribute to building resilience to natural disasters.

Drawing upon a field survey conducted in Japan, this paper demonstrates how the social aspects of community contribute to the development of regional capacity for disaster prevention. It also analyzes the result of a development study JICA carried out in Morocco and identifies some crucial factors that need to be considered in future development assistance projects.

The field survey was carried out in the southwestern part of Kochi Prefecture in Japan in an area that had been heavily damaged by a torrential downpour in 2001. Comparing two affected communities, the result of the study shows that building social capital contributes to developing capabilities for disaster prevention. Similarly, in JICA's development study for disaster prevention in Morocco, it is observed that social capital played an important role in the capacity for disaster prevention. The JICA study team's activities, in collaboration with local leaders, contributed to the enhancement of social capital.

Past debates among proponents of ‘participatory development’ tended to be premised on the notion that people living in rural areas can upgrade their standards of living when they share common interests and objectives. However, since rural communities encompass people of varying socio-economic strata, they are normally rampant with social tensions. When external agencies attempt to get villagers to forgo social divisions and conflicts, and to act as units to achieve ‘shared’ goals, marginal groups often find it difficult to participate on a par with dominant actors because the former are forced to come face to face with the latter in public. This paper examines cases of ‘participatory’ flood control projects in Western Nepal, to explore ‘participatory’ approaches that are more conducive to the empowerment of marginal people. As illustrated by the case study, it is through informal, daily social interactions (‘immanent’ processes of development) that marginal groups manage to redress social inequalities, rather than through external assistance that deliberately ameliorate social injustice (‘imminent’ processes of development, for instance, through the allocation of reserved seats on the project committee and quotas in project activities). This has an important implication for those concerned with ‘participatory development’ if they are to respect local autonomy in the true sense of the term. If external agents are to make better contributions to the cause of marginal groups, it is imperative to start out by considering how the daily flow of social interactions can potentially play a part in ameliorating potential biases in ‘participatory’ processes. It would only then be feasible to devise strategies that build upon opportunities arising from daily social interactions, as well as make up for limitations of ‘popular agency’ to overcome entrenched inequalities.

Countries in the world, especially developing countries, are under pressure to deal with a variety of environmental problems, such as industrial pollution, urban environmental issues, and global warming, while they are expected to simultaneously achieve high economic growth. In this context, they urgently need to leapfrog over environmental difficulties through progressive environmental management, using their “latecomer's advantage” to the maximum extent possible. This study examined whether or not East Asian economies actually enjoy the latecomer's advantage in the area of environmental management, utilizing the analytical framework of the environmental Kuznets curve. The study's main findings are as follows: (1) the time-series EK curves of their economies are consistent with the hypothesis that they do enjoy the latecomer's advantage, and (2) a regression analysis using panel data provides significant confirmation of the existence of the latecomer's advantage for addressing the well known environmental problem of sulfur and carbon emissions.

After a decade of experience since the ‘Law and Judicial Reform’ became a trend in the transition economies and the economies hit by Asian Crisis in 1990s, the time has come to review the consequence of ‘law and judicial assistance’ provided by various sources both multilateral and bilateral. In Asia, it is not unusual to encounter the situation where controversial legislations are resulted from the law reform activities based on several law models provided by different donors and carrying discrepancy each other. Although it is a common behavior of multilateral including World Bank, ADB and EBRD to promote own-made ‘model laws’ in major economic law area, works of academics have not yet successfully established any conclusive justification for those model laws. Even the most influential articles including Pistor and Wellons (1998), La Porta et al. (1997) and Shleifer et al. (2003) must be criticized on their distorted conclusion nevertheless their analytical frameworks to understand the interaction among law, economy and policy dynamism are in themselves meaningful.

On the other hand, a study of some cases among legal assistance programs of Japan's ODA, including the Bankruptcy Law of Vietnam as well as the Civil Code and the Civil Procedure Code of Cambodia, tells us the difficulty of assistance largely depend on the ability of policy decision makings of the local government. When several law models carrying different policy choices are shown by different donors, it is often happen that the local government will decide on the law model of the most influential donor only on political considerations without understanding each model's in-depth policy implication thoroughly.

Probably, it is crucially needed to establish a basis of common forum where all related donors can join and discuss with the local government on the best possible choice of law models for the local society. Althugh the World Bank's ‘Comprehensive Development Framework’ is being promoted in Asia, such a unilateral initiative for the integrity might have less chance of success. The forum for discussion should be started in a much more voluntary basis among various donors. It must be worthwhile to further study some recent movement among bilateral donors in the far front of assistant activities.

This paper investigates the determinants of a firms' decision to carry out research and development (R&D) activities focusing on the role of firms' external factors and internal resources. Specific hypotheses about the factors effecting on the probability of a firm to carry out R&D activities are derived and tested on a sample of 3,520 firms in Thai Manufacturing sector. The study discovered that competitive market conditions and the structure of industrial production as the external factors affect firms' decision to carry out R&D activities. Firm's size, the availability of physical resources, human resources and technology resources as the internal resources also have influences on firms' decision to carry out R&D activities. The study revealed some differences in the R&D determinants among local firms, foreign joint ventures, small firms, and large firms. The results demonstrate the necessity for specific policies on the different types of firms.

During more than three decades, Japan has strenuously and consistently been upholding its status as the “single largest donor” in Bangladesh, one of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) located in South Asia. Japan has distinctly proved itself to be a “tested, trusted and dignified” development partner to the country as well. It is an irrefutable fact that several contributions of Japan's official development assistance (ODA) loan programs to Bangladesh, in dealing predominantly with the infrastructure development sectors, have already been identified as “milestone successes.” Nonetheless, it can fairly be asked whether the magnitude of its aid had significantly been efficacious in fostering Bangladesh's sustainable livelihood efforts. On the one hand, while poverty eradication is given a supreme priority with an expanded focus being put on “quality of aid,” Japan's ODA policy considerations regarding Bangladesh are oftentimes being called into question in the reasonableness that its foreign aid is rather too “gigantic” and “radical.” One the other, despite abundant donations from Japan and other major bilateral donors, Bangladesh has still sizeable shortfalls in the key areas like poverty alleviation, environmental hazards, healthcare and nutrition, and basic education. In practice, development cooperation scenario in Bangladesh has seriously been hindered by an absence of renovated “implementation and management efficiency,” a lack of strong “ownership and self-help effort strategies,” as well as a need for effective “partnership and aid coordination” among the multilateral aid agencies, national and local governments, and non-state actors. Hence, in order to reap the fullest benefit from Japanese foreign aid to Bangladesh in the years ahead, its ODA strategies need a new thinking. To make ODA more praiseworthy of public trust and support, it is very urgent to hear the voices of the beneficiaries of public goods Japan provides. Against this crux, while the study critically analyzes the impact of Japan's ODA to Bangladesh, this unique research article endeavors to concretely suggest about how Japanese generous foreign aid efforts to Bangladesh could strive to assist the nation, from the “lessons learned,” toward addressing the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as well as making it as one of the “stable, poverty-free and prosperous” Asian nations in the most challenging epoch of globalization.

This paper first examines the history of the development theories after the end of the World War II and finds that there happened two big paradigm shifts; the first one took place in the late 60's and the second one began in the late 80's, stemming from the strong criticism of the Neoclassical approach, and even today it still continues. Surprisingly enough, most of the new theories appeared in the second shift have common characteristics; good governance is the center of attention as an crucial factor of development.

Secondly this paper, after having analyzed the reason and background why good governance emerged as an important element in the development theory, concludes that development should be regarded as a dynamic and complex process where three major different dimensions are interrelated: economic, social and political (good governance). So these three dimensions should be focused on correctly in development, otherwise, development could not be dealt with properly. This paper also touches upon some serious and difficult problems to be faced when good governance policy are carried out in practice, because of the fact that good governance is related to the very politics of each developing country.

Lastly, this paper proposes a new idea in development assessment, based on the above mentioned new concept of development, through constructing the CDAI (Comprehensive Development Assessment Index), showing the way how the CDAI is obtained; multiplying the HDI (Human Development Index by UNDP) and the FI (Freedom Index by Freedom House). With the CDAI, it is possible to grasp a whole picture of a country in figures in terms of development.

This study also proves that CDAI is a strong means not only in measuring correctly the overall development achievement but also in offering common grounds for both donors and recipient countries.