The COVID-19 pandemic severely influenced people’s lives in the past two years. The Philippines was hit hard by this pandemic. The characteristics of this pandemic restricted people’s movements, and consequently negatively affected industries such as tourism, transport, and trade. Micro and small enterprises, in particular, are vulnerable to financial threats during crises, even though they deliver the bulk of the services within those industries. Many micro-enterprises in the tourism-related sector decided to close their businesses during the pandemic, while some micro-enterprises managed to survive. To capture the impacts and circumstances that pertain to the tourism sector and to evoke policy suggestions to curb the negative influences of the pandemic, it is indispensable to consecutively observe business operations during the pandemic. We conducted key informant interviews with managers of micro-enterprises in the tourism sector in one of the Philippines’ typical tourist destination provinces, the Laguna province, that managed to survive and asked about the situations for the past three years. Through these interviews, we aimed to identify the factors that persisted among microenterprises in this strongly hit industry and the kind of support they needed to survive. Based on the interviews, we found that not only financial aid for operations but also the timely transmissions of accurate information are essential in this sector. Further development of this sector requires incentive subsidies for business entities that comply with government regulations and measures, as well as efficient financial aid and effective information delivery systems.

Seven out of 333 governors so far in Japan are female. This number seems extremely small, but why do we need more female governors? What do they bring us? This note tackles these questions, and through discussions with four female ex-governors, suggests a tentative and testable answer that they bring diversity to our political decision making with their various backgrounds.

In recent years, local activities among neighbors have decreased due to the shrinking and aging population. This phenomenon diffuses the social network of local communities, Furthermore, it weakens cultural and industrial ties, which in turn reduces motivation to maintain local connections. In order to break this negative spiral, citizen-based community planning is needed. The Studio-L, a company of community design, assists local activities to be sustainable. This report investigates how Studio-L assists to nurture such system at Tachikawa-City Kodomo Mirai Center.

In recent years, with the penetration of SDGs, consumers are required to engage in consumption behavior by considering whether the product they are contemplating purchasing has been made with consideration for the global environment. We anticipate that the practice of such consumption behavior is related to the awareness of a term (“ethical consumption”) that represents consumption behavior. For this report, we have used the results of a questionnaire survey among students of the Department of Policy Studies at Tsuda University conducted in AY2020 as part of a project based on a collaboration agreement between the university and Kewpie Corporation. We analyzed the status of ethical consumption practices in relation to the dietary habits of female university students, and the relationship between the practice and degree of awareness of the term “ethical consumption.” Based on the analysis results, we present suggestions for an approach to propagate ethical consumption behavior.