This study reviews the current status of the cross-border corridor development in Asia and Africa as a case study of Transport Development Studies. Major cross-border corridors include Asian Highway, Trans-Asian Railways, the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) economic corridors, Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) corridors, Transport Corridor Europe Caucasus Asia (TRACECA), Silk Road Economic Belt as a part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Trans-African Highway, Northern Corridors in East Africa, and West Africa Growth Ring. This study also investigates the investment plan, development stage, and institutional issues of the economic corridors of GMS. Three economic corridors of GMS are formulated by Cross-Border Transport Facilitation Agreement (CBTA). However, even though GMS member states signed and ratified the agreements of annexes and protocols, these rules are not implemented yet. Instead of CBTA, GMS member states implement and operate the cross-border transport rules based on bilateral or trilateral agreements because these are easy to manage. Certain conditions are required for transport corridors to become economic corridors. For example, economic corridors should be logistics as well as passenger corridors, including high-speed railways, to create an economic agglomeration. Port development is also important as a gateway of the economic corridors. In addition, the efficiency of border operation and document compliance in electrification is essential.

In 2015, Tsubasa Bridge was inaugurated at Neak Loeung in Cambodia. The bridge was requested to construct with Japan's ODA in December 2001. Compared to similia projects such as Kizuna Bridge in Cambodia or Nile Bridge in Uganda, the bridge required a longer time prior to the decision-making by the Japanese government for providing an ODA grant.

Regarding the bridge project, the Advisory Council for Environmental and Social Considerations discussed not only natural and social environmental issues, but contents of alternatives, project scales, the timing of inauguration, and furthermore whether the ODA grant is appropriate. The Council advised JICA as “JICA should monitor the traffic volume whether the number follows the estimated number for a couple of years.”

We focus on the reasons why it took more than eight years from the request to the signing of Exchange of Notes for providing an ODA grant to the project as (1) the method for capturing current traffic volume and the forecast of future traffic volume became significant issues at the advisory council, and (2) there might be carefully conducted on examinations of the environmental and social considerations because ODA grant, not ODA loan, would be considered to the project.

This study revealed the process for decision making, focusing particularly on the period between the completion of the feasibility study in March 2006 and the commencement of the basic design study in February 2009, with reviewing and analyzing mainly publicly available documents. We concluded that there might have been a significant impact on considering the process for JICA, and it might have caused two years for getting “go-ahead” from the advisory committee.

Developing countries still have a fragile social and economic infrastructure. In this context, the demand for infrastructure in developing countries is on the rise, but the investment is concentrated in the metropolitan area and core infrastructure for industrial development, and the regional disparity between large cities and rural areas is widening.

The most realistic approach to cope with rural road development is to focus on the establishment of technical standards and development guidelines, and the dissemination of efficient maintenance and management technology in the country through technical cooperation, rather than the maintenance of nationwide facilities that cost more. In this way, infrastructure development in rural areas is often tackled mainly through technical cooperation, but even if they are collectively referred to as rural areas, they have diverse characteristics such as weather, topography, and culture. In addition, administrative agencies and management organizations are often underdeveloped, and when considering the inconvenience of transportation and procurement of materials, projects in rural areas are said to have more factors to be considered and are more complicated than those in urban areas.

This paper focuses on technical cooperation projects for rural roads, which are underdeveloped and in poor condition in the road transportation sector, which is the basic infrastructure that supports social economic activities such as agriculture and local industries, targeting developing countries where economic development is highly expected. The objective of this paper is to examine the following four elements through case analysis: (1) selection of technologies for development, (2) details of technical cooperation, (3) technology components and the process of development and dissemination, and (4) project evaluation methods.

The analytical approach indicated above clarified the appropriate methodology of development assistance for technical cooperation projects as follows. (1) the selection of technology for rural roads should be determined based on the ease of technology diffusion, social acceptability, life cycle cost, and asset management, (2) it is important to transfer and deploy three components of technology, organization, and institution as a set in the technical cooperation, (3) the process of making feedback from the field more functional is effective for the dissemination of rural road technology, and (4) the evaluation method for projects will be more effective after the termination of the project by setting the evaluation factors in advance from the viewpoint of dissemination of the technology and strengthening the organizational capacity.

The distinctive feature of the community-based road paving project in NongKo village, northeastern Thailand, is that there was no financial assistance from the local government for the purchase of construction materials. Instead, the expenses were covered by donations from the residents and support from businesses associated with the village. Additionally, the paved roads are of high quality as concrete pavement, and there was an improvement in construction techniques observed throughout the four-year construction period. The central settlement of the village is connected by an access road located slightly less than 2 kilometers away from the main highway. Prior to this project, the road was unpaved, making it difficult for vehicles to travel, particularly during the agricultural harvesting season, posing a significant obstacle. Although the village had requested road paving from the county government in the past, it had not been realized. Therefore, the residents needed to undertake the paving project by themselves. NongKo village has a high number of migrant workers, so the work was carried out only for 3 to 4 days in early April when the labor force returned to the village each year, and it took four years to complete.

In this study, we focus on NongKo village in northeastern Thailand as a case study of communitybased infrastructure development. The background to the unique features of NongKo village is believed to be a strong sense of attachment to the community. Therefore, in this study, we conducted questionnaire surveys, factor analysis, covariance structure analysis, and interviews with the village chief and leaders to explore the implementation process of the community-based infrastructure development project in NongKo village and examine the relationship between the residents’attachment to the community and the local environmental and socio-cultural context.

In this paper, the applicability of the technical transfer of locally available material-based road repair methods for international development projects is discussed through the review of the implemented projects by the NGO, Community Road Empowerment, where the authors belong. The NGO has implemented training on the locally available material-based road repair methods to the communities and youth in the classroom and onsite thus rural road accessibility has been improved. Not only is the trafficability improved, but also the community or youth self-reliance initiatives have been enhanced leading to the start of medium and small enterprises for sustainable employment.

After the review of the projects implemented by the authors' NGO, it is found that the types of resources of those projects are grouped into eight. The authors have initiated some projects, and others have been conducted upon request from other international cooperation organisations. The projects have been sourced through several ODA types, technical cooperation, grant aid, and allocation to international organisations, such as UN and Multilateral Development Banks. And it is also revealed that the technical transfer of road repair skills to the communities was conducted in the projects for the following four areas; Infrastructure development, Community development, Promoting social stability for shared prosperity, and Promoting structural economic transformation through economic diversification and industrialization.

The Government of Japan has been supporting the PMD for more than 30 years primarily because the PMD plays a vital role in disaster management in Pakistan, a country prone to meteorological disasters. In more than 30 years of the author's experience in improving the meteorological service capability of meteorological organizations in developing countries through grant aid projects, many cases have been observed in which the staff do not wish to share the technology and skill they have acquired in order to avoid threats to their own position and rank in the organization. However, the exception to this situation is the PMD, and it is a special one. The PMD staff are fulfilling their responsibilities despite limited budgets and less ideal work environments and are contributing to the nation in an autonomous manner by improving their capability through sharing knowledge among the PMD members. This study aims to clarify and elaborate on the knowledge (expertise) sharing mechanisms of the PMD, focusing on the motivation of the PMD staff, with the ultimate goal of presenting more effective approaches for strengthening organizational capability. Therefore, an analytical framework of organizational science is applied to identify the mechanisms for sharing professional knowledge by the PMD staff, and by referring to the results, new approaches to support effective capability enhancement are discussed. As a conclusion, it is identified that among “Autonomy/Competence/Relatedness” that affects the intrinsic motivation, “Autonomy and Competence” most greatly influence the intrinsic motivation of the PMD staff. It is also clarified that intrinsic motivation is the main factor in promoting expertise retention and sharing.

The number of internal migrants in The Republic of India (hereafter referred to as India) is increasing rapidly since the liberalization of its economy in 1991. This caused an increase in the number of school-aged children accompanying their parents on migrant work, and cases of such children not attending school have been identified.

The aim of this study is to identify the difficulties that internal migrant workers in India face in continuing their education when they migrate with their children and, from the perspective of the parents, why and how they overcome these challenges and try to ensure that their children receive a good education. The field research was conducted for two weeks in August 2022 in Udupi district, Karnataka state, southwest India. A questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation were conducted with workers in a migrant community (hereafter referred to as Community X). To highlight the characteristics in India, results were also compared to the case in China, where the household registration system (Hukou) is a barrier to the education of migrant workers' children.

Migrant workers are trying to deliver education to their children despite facing four challenges caused by labour migration, and it is hard to say that they are not interested in their children's education. In order to overcome those challenges, they had the choice to send their children to school in their hometowns or to send them to student hostels in the migrant destination. Parents who choose to send their children to school in their hometown value the fact that their children are always looked after by adults, and that there is plenty of information about the school and the area, which enables them to make appropriate educational investments. Parents who choose to send to student hostels in the migrant destination focus on the quality of education in the migrant destination and choose it because their children are always looked after by adults and have access to a good learning environment.

The difference between these two choices was found to depend on what parents consider to be a ‘good education for their children. In other words, it can be said that parents who value a safe and nurturing environment based on their own experience will choose the school in their hometown, while parents with a passion for education who value the quality of education will choose the school in the migrant destination.

Indonesia has a population of over 270 million people, divided into over 1,300 distinct ethnic groups, and approximately 750 native languages. Based on Indonesia National Act No. 20 year 2003 about National Education System, it is said that there are three kinds of education channel: formal education, nonformal education and informal education. Equivalency education is a nonformal education providing the opportunity for people, especially the youth who dropped out of school: primary school, Junior Secondary School, and Senior Secondary School.

A Community Learning Center (CLC) is a local educational institution, usually set up and managed by local communities to provide various learning opportunities with the support of the government, NGOs, and the private sector. After International Commitment to Education for All (EFA) in 1990, CLCs grow and develop in South-East Asian countries, especially to reach the unreached and serve marginalized community.

This study aims to clarify the reasons why out-of-school children in Indonesia choose CLC or Pusat Kegiatan Belajar Masyarakat (PKBM) in Indonesian language, by answering the following questions:

(1) Why the participants in Equivalency education programs in PKBM dropout formal school?

(2) What purpose do the participants have in Equivalency education program in PKBM?

Data was collected through fieldwork for two weeks in February 2020 in Province of West Java, in Indonesia. Questionnaires were administered to 138 respondents from 3 PKBM. A total of 46 persons including 4 PKBM participants, staff, and local government staff were interviewed.

The results are as follows: First, the reason why out-of-school children choose PKBM was mainly caused by children's mentality that PKBM is really a school in itself, and parent's lack of understanding of their children's education. Second, PKBM has been polarized into the alternative educational institutions and model school for going on to higher education.

This paper explores to derive policy implications for promoting sustainability in Islamic finance from a viewpoint of regulations. The consideration is based on comparative analysis between conventional finance and Islamic finance. At the point of this writing, standard setting bodies on Islamic finance (SSBIFs hereinafter) are less vocal in the attempts to accommodate ESG factors and/or SDGs in financial practices than their counterparts on conventional finance (SSBCFs hereinafter).

However, the Islamic doctrine has fundamental affinity with the idea of sustainable development especially in terms of social issues. There are valuable lessons in the Islamic finance which regulators in the conventional finance can learn. Their potential importance is increasing, given the prevailing call to modify the extreme capitalism which widened economic disparities across social classes through the global pandemic.

Against the backdrop, this paper presents two recommendations. One is aimed at SSBIFs to stimulate internal discussion and, based on the outcome, to disseminate the findings and thoughts more openly. The other is aimed at both SSBIFs and SSBCFs to enhance collaboration with each other. Their realization would not only contribute to the further development of Islamic finance but also bring positive externality to the conventional finance.

In this respect, 1) classification of sustainable activities, 2) disclosure on relevant quantitative and qualitative data, and 3) introduction of capital charge on banks' assets exposed to ESG risks would be most pertinent.

This is a study about partnerships between governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), exploring the development and current situation of civil participation in Cambodia. Generally speaking, civil participation is linked in important ways to many areas of civil life, such as development and democracy. In Cambodia, the government considers NGOs to be key partners and recently initiated formal mechanisms to cooperate with NGOs, even though a number of human rights organizations, as well as United Nation experts, have concerns about civic space in the nation. Based on primary and secondary sources obtained from government officials, a networking NGO, and 13 NGOs involved in various areas of activity, this study mainly explores how direct-institutionalized partnerships between governments and NGOs have the potential to improve civic space. Of note, the author highlights that the partnerships between government and NGOs can work at least for information sharing in a society where there is a trend of deterioration in democratic space. In the author's view, in order to solve social issues and improve civil participation, governments will need to be willing to go beyond just information exchange and set goals and actions within genuine partnerships, which will potentially lead to the enhancement of relationships and cooperation between governments and NGOs.