This essay discusses the significance of employing historical approaches to the study of international development cooperation, defined as consisting of official development assistance (ODA) and other activities. Its arguments are premised on the understanding that analysis of Japan's international development cooperation (hereafter IDC) from historical points of view will open doors to ample bodies of knowledge not readily available otherwise. First, historical studies of IDC since the 1950s can help deepen our knowledge on the footsteps of post-WWII Japan. Second, historical analysis of IDC will be useful in revealing and validating the strengths and weaknesses of its approaches employed therein, such as Japan's strong emphasis on infrastructure development of partner countries. And third, by observing IDC historically, one can expect to grasp a wide range of impacts of IDC to its recipient countries, including both intended and unintended consequences.

The East Asian Miracle, the World Bank's largest selling publication, is the outcome of the concerted operations of Japan's Ministry of Finance and the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) ; the objective was to urge the World Bank to make an in-depth study of the role of government in the East Asia's development achievements.

In the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s, structural adjustment was a dominant stream in international development circles. The prescription, or the Washington Consensus, was based on Neoclassical economics and shared by the US Treasury, the World Bank and the IMF. However, a group of government officials and academics in Japan were critical of market fundamentalism and“one size fits all” pattern of the structural adjustment policy packages. After a series of hot dispute, particularly on the financial sector reform in the Philippines, MOF and OECF made up their mind to challenge the orthodoxy. They presented a provocative paper to the annual meeting with the World Bank. Dani Rodrik described the confrontation“King Kong versus Godzilla.”

In spite of“inelegance,”the OECF paper attracted considerable attention. Under the circumstance, the World Bank agreed to have a study of public policy in East Asia, with the Japanese funding.

The East Asian Miracle report tried hard to conserve the World Bank's orthodoxy. It concluded that industrial policy, the most controversial subject, was“largely ineffective.”However, it resorted to acknowledge extensive government activism, including directed credit, another controversial topic, and export promotion. In retrospect, The East Asian Miracle was the beginning of the decline of Washington consensus; afterwards in 2004, President Wolfensohn announced“The Washington consensus has been dead.”

Japan's challenge to the development norm could furnish developing countries with useful hints, as they must express themselves under the inequal donor-recipient relationship.

In 2015, the Development Cooperation Charter, which clearly stated “ensuring Japan's national interests” as part of the “objectives of development cooperation,” was decided by Japan's Cabinet. This charter triggered debates on what the purpose of development cooperation policy should be and why “ensuring Japan's national interests” was specified. What these studies revealed was a synchronic link-age with the policies undertaken by the Abe administration at the time, which meant that the social norms of altruism, that development cooperation policies should be implemented for the welfare of others, had already faded.

When and how did the social norms of altruism weaken with regard to Japan's development cooperation policy? In this paper, I examine the period from the 1970s to the early 2000s, in order to clarify the process of normative transition from altruism to self-interest through historical discourse analysis. Altruism here is defined as a social norm constructed by discourses that emphasize the humanitarian aspects of aid, positioning development cooperation policies as a means to fulfill international “responsibilities” and “contributions.” Self-interest, on the other hand, is defined as a social norm constructed by discourses that encourages “Japan's visible assistance” based on “national interests ”and“ strategy.”

This analysis mainly revealed that (1) as early as the 1980s, the slump in plant exports triggered the Japan Business Federation to ask the Japanese government for“Japan's visible assistance ”based on “national interests” and “strategies,” (2) around the mid-1990s, fiscal retrenchment and the securitization of Northeast Asia led to the spread of self-interest social norm in Japanese society. These results reveal that the foregrounding of self-interest was a process of re-enforcing the linkage between development cooperation policies and domestic economic conditions, which in turn suggests the contemporary question of whether there is any alternative form of linkage between development cooperation policies and domestic conditions.

This work studies the role of aid in promoting a sense of self-reliance among refugees and thus reducing the burden on asylum countries. It is thought that asylum countries' increasing acceptance of refugees can increase the number of refugee-related demands. In the case of refugee camp, sports activities have been used to promote life skills education and self-reliance among refugee youth. Recent research about development through sports indicates that aid through sport typically does not include ways to continue the program itself or involve implementers on the field to activities that are the donor countries' responsibility. Therefore, refugees, who are the main stakeholders, cannot subjectively engage in educational activities through sport. Thus, it is possible that aid is not helping to promote self-reliance among refugees.

This paper aims to clarify signification of educational support on refugee camp by Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR).

The study took place from January to March 2016 in the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan, and involved Syrian volunteers who are refugees, Jordanian staffs working in refugee camp, and refugee youths, all of whom used CBPR to implement education activities through sport activities organized by a non-governmental organization. We comprehensively analyzed the whole CBPR process.

When I did that: Even though the members of CBPR recognized the issues in the refugee camp, they could not approach and try to solve the issues because they were pursued by assistance agency at the beginning of CBPR. The activities that have a long-term vision, such as training implementers, are not performed sufficiently. This does not promote refugees' self-reliant behavior, which enable them to analyze local issues and take action even while being extremely vulnerable. However, the members were able to use grassroots methods to implement education activities with a sense of ownership through CBPR, such as sharing education and youth related issues. Consequently, Syrian volunteer revealed that the sports event, which was organized by the assistance agency, was creating an opportunity for violence and inequality in the refugee camp. and suggested that the significance of using safe sports, using new sports, and working with local adults to solve these issues.

This study shows that the perspective of participatory development such as CBPR is also needed in SDP. CBPR can create a conductive environment for such a process. It also makes it possible to train staff who can use sports as an effective education tool local, and develop and continue education aid, which contributes towards fostering a sense of independence and ownership in refugees.

The implications of this study will help to promote strategies to use sports to develop educational activities on refugee camp. The field of SDP is a field of sports instruction and assistance with a mechanism of top and down. The participatory perspective was born under a democratic state. Therefore to consider How is the CBPR, which emphasize equal relationship of people involved, adapt the field of sport instruction or assistance which has hierarchy system, will be a future issue.

Universal health coverage (UHC), a target of SDG 3, aims to offer health services for all people at an affordable cost, filling the gap in health disparity, and thus realizing health equity.

Both Thailand and Mexico, which are categorized as upper-middle-income countries according to the World Bank's definition, established public health security systems for their informal sectors in the early 2000s, aiming to achieve UHC. However, the policies of the two countries differ and have generated different outcomes.

Through making comparisons between their UHC systems, I attempted to identify the differences in their policy options and the factors that have hindered the progress of UHC.

I conducted the research mainly through literature reviews to investigate their public health security systems and used WHO HEAT software for measuring health service coverage, WHO Global Health Observatory data repository, and the World Bank's Open Data, to analyze the trends of health expenditures.

The results are as follows: (1) The policy of voluntary affiliation to public health insurance has resulted in delays in achieving UHC in Mexico; (2) while the division of purchasers and providers may have enabled Thailand to oversee health services and costs, it did not take place in Mexico; (3) Thailand has successfully implemented UHC on the bedrock of primary health care; in Mexico, the weakness of PHC has caused underuse of public health insurance, increasing out-of-pocket health expenditures; (4) both a government commitment to raising the health budget and more efficient use of health services at public and private health facilities may be required to reduce the consistently high rate of out-of-pocket expenditures in Mexico.

“The Project for Strengthening Peace through the Improvement of Public Services in Three Darfur States (SMAP-II),”initiated by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), conducted vocational training, and a self-esteem survey targeting the training participants was implemented from 2017 to 2018. This study analyzes the survey data and reveals that their self-esteem scores are similar with the ones of another areas of Sudan and other African nations. Since self-esteem evaluates internal psychosocial aspect, and when external factors such as war, conflict, and social and economic situation are not changing for a long time, their influence on self-esteem may decline.

Regarding the vocational training's influence on self-esteem, compared with the self-esteem scores before the vocational training among 246 participants, 165 participants'scores increased (67.1%), 22 participants'ones were same (8.9%), and 59 decreased (24.0%). It was clarified that the participants with the increased scores occupies a large number and the statistical analysis of the scores also rose significantly. The correlation between the self-esteem score and the satisfaction of vocational training and the teaching methods to increase the self-esteem was also analyzed. As a result, although strong correlation could not be confirmed, weak correlation was confirmed significantly. It was suggested that the satisfaction of the training and the teaching methods has an influence on trainee's self-esteem. In order to investigate the self-esteem changes in terms of behavior, 40 good cases were collected from vocational training lecturers. Improvements in the participants'self-esteem and psychological aspects but also changes in the training lecture's awareness of training were reported. As mentioned above, for the participants and the lecturers, the good influence in both psychological aspects and behavior was confirmed by carrying out the vocational training which considered self-esteem.

The number of students from Africa to China has been increasing rapidly, but there is a lack of study discussing their motivations and experiences in relation to this kind of student mobility, which is different from traditional models. The purpose of this study is to examine the motivations and experiences of African students in China by focusing on students' individual backgrounds, and discussing the reasons why China attracts African students. A case study was conducted at Xiamen University, a national university in Southeastern China, using semi-structured interviews with 12 students from Ghana, Nigeria, Tanzania, Zambia, and Rwanda.

The results showed four types of motivation. For the first type, “second chance,” students see China as a more viable alternative to studying in Western countries. As there is little chance to gain scholarships in the latter, they eventually choose to go to China. The second type, “career enhancement,” refers to those who have work experience and are seeking to develop their careers through the acquisition of higher degrees in China. The third type, “language, culture and city interest,” refers to those who are interested in learning the Chinese language and culture, and the living environment in Chinese cities. For the last type, “family strategy,” the decision to study in China is part of a family plan to develop the family business.

African students have positive and negative experiences in China. Positive experiences include the acquisition of cross-cultural understanding, the improvement of language skills and an increase in academic knowledge. Moreover, they appreciate the quality of education at Xiamen University and the speed of economic and social development in China. On the other hand, they encounter problems such as discrimination from Chinese people, and gaining access to internships and employment in China remains a challenge.

English programs attract African students proficient in English, which contributes to student mobility from Africa to China. Also, various scholarship policies implemented by the Chinese government are an important incentive. Furthermore, deepening economic relationships between China and Africa are promoting students' career development. Finally, African students who gain positive experiences are willing to recommend their families and friends to study in China.