Japanese Official Development Aid in the 1970's and 80s was often criticized as ‘too much economic infrastructure oriented’ or ‘too much loan oriented’, and also ‘strictly tied’. In response to these critiques, Japanese ODA during last decade tried hard to ‘correct’ those features. Also Japanese ODA responded to the cry for the importance of ‘social development’. That changing process of Japanese ODA was, in a sense, imitating and catching up to ‘Western aid style’. Now this Western aid style became a “global standard” of the development discourse. ‘Development Aid’ is a human activity which is highly bound by ‘donor's own culture. Therefore, currently prevailing development discourses such as ‘humanitarian’ aid, ‘grant-oriented’, or ‘participatory’ development are mainly based on Western, Christianity culture and their aid experiences during last 30 years. Similarly, ex-Japanese ODA style had its roots on Japanese society, culture, historical background and technical ability of Japan. But having imitated Western Aid, Japanese ODA now, to the author's eye, seems became rootless and lacking self-confidence. Monopolization of development discourse is not desirable from tow reasons. First, developing countries have different situations and cultures. Some of the countries may not suitable for receiving western aid culture, but without having another choice, they are compelled to receive socially unsuitable’ or abandon aid. Developing countries should have choice what kind of Aid they will take according to their own social, cultural assessment. Second, ‘Western Aid style’ is not necessarily the best way of giving aid. Of course ‘social development’ is very important, but ‘participatory approach is not always suitable manner to mobilize local resources and not always guarantee the of the project. ‘Western Aid style’ is supported academically by the ‘development studies’. This development studies have been grown with western aid experiences, their success and failure Unfortunately in Japan, we don't have development studies, mainly because we have not share owe own aid experiences among aid workers, government officials, and academic people. We should develop our own ‘development studies’ based on Japan's unique experience and culture. To diversify development studies is essential contribution.

ODA is classified into bilateral ODA and multilateral, and the former is decomposed into grant (financial and technical) and loan. Under the Japanese aid administration, each ODA component is implemented by a different ministry and/or agency. Aid agencies are under joint control of several ministries. Those ministries, in their capacities as supervisors are engaged in formulation of Japan's overall ODA policies. This dispersed responsibility and diversified implementation are characteristic of the Japanese aid system. Out of ministries responsible for ODA activities, the Foreign Ministry naturally has been quite eager to promote Japanese ODA as part of foreign policy pillars, and their position as ODA leading ministry is enhanced in the Administrative Reform in December, 1997. The relation between the government and an aid institution is comparable to that of principal and agent, where asymmetry of information is compensated by monitoring of aid agency's operations, but at the same time there takes place “reciprocal substitution”, where ministries concerned undertake part of responsibilities pertinent to an executing agency, and on the other hand, an agency acts as surrogate for the government on various occasions. This reciprocity of activities is effective in terms of sharing experiences and acknowledges. However, it tends to make blurred divide of responsibility between two parties, and to cause duplication and overlapping of activities. It has been observed that aid personnel in the government including aid organizations are short of continuously increasing workload. Japan as a dominant supplier of ODA for a decade has been expected to take the lead in addressing major developmental issues. The initiative role requires well-experienced and highly knowledgeable staffers. More delegation of operations to aid agencies and less intervention by the government would be conducive to more efficient reallocation of scarce aid personnel for effective aid policy formulation and execution, which is what the international community demands.

The World Bank focused on poverty in her “World Development Report 1990”, UNDP has started to publish “Human Development Report” since 1990, the Social Summit was held in 1995, and DAC adopted “the new strategy of development co-operation” in her “Shaping the 21st Century: the Contribution of Development Co-operation” in 1996.

Under these new international consensus on development and aid, Japanese government put forward “the human-centered development” as a new ODA strategy towards the 21st century. Especially, she focuses on “poverty” as one of the most important problems to be solved. However, it is still not clear enough what “the human-centered development” does mean and what type of ODA strategy could be effective for fighting poverty.

Looking back the history of ideas of development economics on fighting poverty, we can see two different strands of ideas; poverty issues at the national economy level and poverty issues at the individual level. It is an urgent task for us to integrate both levels of ideas for fighting poverty in a systematic way.

The most important thing for fighting poverty is to integrate and to balance infrastructure projects and projects which targeted to the poor. It will be futile if we fall into false dichotomy of infrastructure projects first or poverty-focused projects first. Both projects are necessary for fighting poverty.

For fighting poverty it is not enough to focus only on individual poverty projects, but the more essential task is to have a clear view how individual poverty-focused projects are systematically integrated in the development strategy as a whole of recipient countries.

In this paper, I tried to show how social anthropology can contribute to the study of socio-economic development and the evaluation method, using the example of the evaluation sample.

Let us now consider the most efficient way to reconcile development projects with indigenous culture. Social anthropology has long emphasized indigenous culture and technology to be the main driving force in socioeconomic development projects. It is about time we take a closer look at indigenous cultures, their values and technology, and study the potentials it might offer in order to facilitate social and economic development. Another solution is to invite anthropologists with expertise in one region to participate in joint preliminary studies alongside development economists and political scientists. One such methodology developed in the early 80's through collaborative effort evolving anthropologists are Rapid Rural Appraisal (RRA) and Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA), used in preliminary studies and post-project evaluation. This was jointly developed by Khon Kaen University in Thailand and England's Sussex University and is now widely employed by public institutions in Europe and America as a tool for short-term field study conducted by groups. These two methodologies allow study groups to conduct field studies and research on indigenous culture while cutting back on time and expense, and shortening the term of field study. On average, it only takes 10 to 14 days to complete a field study using the above methodology. This cutback on time does not compromise the quality of research. On the contrary, these tools were developed in order to improve quality and efficiency of data gathering. Meaningful data gathering is made possible by excluding extraneous research material, and tapping on the rich resources of researchers doing work in the field. I have developed a methodology called Rapid Research Method, and this enables social anthropologists to conduct accurate field studies at level with those used by economists. By integrating the internet with tools used in RRA and PRA, researchers can now communicate closely with local researchers before conducting field work. This allows them to compare notes and exchange ideas several times in advance through e-mail. This process results in a study balances with an adequate understanding of local circumstances, thereby cutting down on time and expense, as well as improving the quality of information gathering. (refer to Social Impact Table)

The planning of irrigation development projects requires the consideration of the organizational and institutional aspects because without them the projects cannot fit the local institution of the project target area, and it will create problems on irrigation system management.

This paper tries to consider how the irrigation system which development project introduces and the local institution conflict with each other based on the case of a National Irrigation System (NIS) of NIA (National Irrigation Administration) in the Philippines.

In the Philippine human relation network, each person relates with the other personally based on his/her favoritism. This relation is reciprocal one called ‘debt of gratitude’. When one person relates with his/her superior, their relation can be seen as a patron-client relationship formed by a leader and a follower. Many of these human relation networks exist within a Baranguay (village). When there is no leader who can mediate two persons in the equal level, those two act individually, and become isolated and decentralized.

These features of human relation network reflect on the management of an irrigation system. For example, if the Irrigators' Association (IA) President has this patron-client relationship with the IA members, it is easy for him to manage the irrigation system as the members cooperate with his direction. However, if the irrigation system is too big as it covers many Baranguays, it is not easy for him to control the all IA members because the boundary of IA service area is bigger than the boundary of his personal network. Moreover, when the top Project Manager of the NIS is weak to mediate each IA and TSA (IA's substructure), they become to work individually. TSA has to solve water distribution problem within itself though the volume of water in which each TSA receives is not same. It is NIA itself who avoids a strong top management in this NIS as NIA does not want the corruption or the intervention of politics to NISs. However, this NIA's policy prevents a strong leader from employing his mediative function, and it reduces the efficiency of irrigation system management as a result.

International cooperation by local governments in Japan is expected to expand as this development would improve the quality of Japan's international cooperation, but the number of projects of genuine local initiative has not been large and that of projects participated in by local governments within the ODA framework has been in the majority. Many studies on the latter have been conducted, but not on the former. Therefore, this study identifies characteristics of the former, i.e., the local initiatives, and analyzes the rationale for it.

It also analyzes the issues concerning to the expansion of the local initiatives through questionnaire surveys, and finally presents recommendations for measures to deal with the issues, for the promotion of the local initiatives.

From the perspective of international cooperation, local governments have particular know-how about local administration and being close to their citizens. A full-utilization of these characteristics could improve the quality of Japan's international cooperation.

The main issues concerning to the local initiative in Japan are; firstly, setting out the purpose and ideas behind the international cooperation to obtain support from local citizens, their insufficient funds and lack of human resources, and under-developed methods of project formulation for their international cooperation.

This paper presents two categories of the purpose and ideas; firstly, the basic belief that international cooperation creates reliance between people and people across national boundaries, secondly, the particular purpose of individual local governments. Two methods of project formulation are presented. In the case of one based on sister-city relations, which is the currently most popular approach, information collection before project formulation need to be improved. Another recommendation puts importance on identifying characteristics of municipalities, and selecting areas of cooperation according to the characteristics. The problems of insufficient funds and human resources are solved by; networking among local governments, sharing of these resources, relocating ODA fund, and contracting-out projects to NGOs.

In 1950, Indian Constitution declared to provide free and compulsory primary education to all the children of the country up to 14 years of agè within ten years after its commencement. Till date, however, this commitment to the universal primary education remains to be fulfilled. Given the importance of the basic education to the nation's overall development and the fact that India has the biggest illiterate population in the world, it is urgently required for India to achieve the substantial improvement in the performance of its primary education.

This paper examines the current status of primary education in India based on the past studies and the author's experiences, and identifies some of the critical issues which need to be addressed on a priority basis. The author first presents the current status of primary education in India in three aspects, i.e. enrolment, retention and the quality of education. He then examines the causes of low achievement in these areas in terms of four factors, i.e. wide prevalence of poverty, low level of resource allocation by the government, limited access to primary education due to physical and social factors, and the low quality of education. Although the poverty plays a critical part in lowering the level of enrolment and retention, it is only one factor among many others. Among other important factors is the poor quality of education in many of the government primary schools which works as a disincentive for the poor households to send their children to school. This in turn is due to a low political priority attached to the basic education in India, and correspondingly low level of resource allocation to education sector in general and primary education sector in particular. Another critical factor is the existence of social norms which work against the schooling of certain disadvantaged groups such as girl children and the children of schedule castes and schedule tribes. The present status of primary education in India need to be understood as a result of interplay between the system failure and the existence of these social norms, as Drèze and Sen put it. In the end, the author comments on the issues to be addressed on a priority basis under five heads, viz. more prioritised resource allocation to primary education sector; substantial improvement in the quality of education and its relevance to the life of the majority of Indian population; improvement of the quality of teachers; collection, use and dissemination of reliable data on the status of primary education; implementation of the realistic programme for decentralization and community participation; and formation of social alliance to advocate universal primary education as the national goal.

After taking over the presidency of Bangladesh in 1982, former President Ershad immediately started decentralisation of administration by setting up Upazila Parishad at Thana level by promulgating the “Upazila parishad and upazila reorganisation ordinance 1982”. This democratic decision of the government was welcomed by the people then, and tremendous amount of development fund, 50 lakh taka per parishad on the average, were allocated to each Upazila Parishad. However, this people's expectation of Upazila Parishad system turned into hatred after a couple of years because of corruption, wastage and abuses. Khaleda Zia, taking the leadership of the country in 1991, took an immediate action to abolish this Upazila Parishad system replacing by Thana development coordination committee. The decentralisation process was thus aborted.

Having majority in the national parliament election in June 1996, Prime Minister Hasina's government now tries to revive the Upazila Parishad system again. The main thrust, Mohammad Siddiquer Rahman put it in the newspaper, should be given to the participatory development, transparency in the decision making process and accountability to the government and to the people.

Although Upazila Parishad may be due within 1998, the human resources to run participatory rural development at the Upazila level seem to be absolutely short. The knowledge and methodology to motivate people's self reliance should be invested with relevant officers at Upazila level as soon as possible.

Most of the SME support projects in Poland are implemented under the international assistance program, such as the Phare program of the EU. The Polish Foundation for Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion and Development (hereafter the SME Fund) was established to coordinate the SME support projects of the Phare. Actual technical supports to SMEs are mainly provided by a variety of local business organizations at the provincial level, which were voluntarily established with or without foreign assistance. Chambers of Commerce and Industry or Regional Development Agencies are the example of these organizations. When the SME Fund selects the business organizations that shall implement specific SME support projects with grant or subsidies, the fund usually offers public tenders. Those organizations that submit the most attractive proposals to the fund would be the successful bidders.

The benefit of public tendering is that the SME Fund could find out the most experienced and talented business organizations to implement the projects. The operational budget of the SME Fund is rather limited and shall be largely reduced in the near future by the EU. Therefore, it is necessary for the fund to concentrate their assistance to those organization that are highly efficient and would be capable to continue their services even without the Phare assistance. The problem of public tendering, however, is that weak and inexperienced business organizations shall continue to face a difficulty to implement the Phare projects. If SMEs are unfortunately located in the province that does not have capable business organizations, these enterprises would have no opportunities to receive any assistance of the Phare program Usually the strong and experienced business organizations are not located in poor regions, where the local SMEs might severely need the Phare assistance. This problem is partly coped with by the SME Fund. When the fund offers public tenders, it makes special attention to those regions where no local organizations have ever implemented the Phare projects. The cooperation between the strong and the week organizations is, moreover, actively encouraged by the SME Fund.

The aim of this paper is not to provide readers with a detailed sketch of Singapore's public housing program. Rather, it aims at depicting and examining how a housing program could be an effective political tool and economic/social incentive for the building of a new city-sate. Singapore, which is no longer a part of the Third World, has achieved a rapid and consistent economic growth and social development since its first independence in 1959. A strong political leadership of the People's Action Party's (PAP) government has played a critical role in many aspects of national development. Among various development efforts, the public housing program could be served as one of the most prominent examples of the PAP government's planning and development policy and philosophy. Regardless of its highly-centralized planning and top-down or even authoritarian implementation, the PAP has succeeded in attracting people's political supports, and Singapore has became the city with one of the most orderly planned housing services as a consequent. Now indeed, nearly 90% of the population is living in public housing estates. What could make possible this unique social experiment, and how could it affect the whole economic and social development of the state? Regarding this, economic, social, and political dimensions of the public housing program will be discussed.