1 Introduction

Ownership is a concept that the international aid community has emphasized since the 1990s, and Japan has been an enthusiastic practitioner and promoter of ownership. However, Japan’s view of ownership, or “ōnā shippu (オーナーシップ),” is a loanword which emphasizes the responsibility aspect of ownership, reflecting its own history of development and foreign aid experiences that embrace self-help virtue. In Japan, “ōnā shippu” is still often translated into Japanese words, such as “自助努力 (jijo doryoku, self-help)” and “主体性 (shutaisei, subjectivity)” in dictionaries and official documents. These Japanese words connote the meaning of “ownership” internationally used in aid community, but still have distinctive nuances from it. Why has the Japanese government (and a considerable number of researchers) used the loan word, “ōnā shippu,” in many instances, rather than using these existing Japanese concslightly broader spectrum of actionepts?

Because of its uniqueness, the recipient side also questioned the view of “ōnā shippu” at least initially, when Japan first proposed “ōnā shippu” as a new concept of development. The former high-ranked Japanese diplomat to Africa, Kurokochi Yasushi, introduced the conversation regarding “ōnā shippu” with African ambassadors to Japan in Tokyo in the early 1990s:

I said, “Let’s cultivate substantive ōnā shippu of development. Then, many development plans based on ōnā shippu will emerge. Only then will donors who work together based on partnership for development come out.” An ambassador objected, saying, “Isn’t it obvious that we, who live in Africa, originally have ownership?” So, I tried to convince them by saying, “Just possessing “ōnā shippu” doesn’t necessarily mean it is really effective” (Shirato 2020a).

This discussion between the African and Japanese diplomats revealed the difference in their views on ownership. While the African side regarded ownership as an inherent right or entitlement that the recipient side had, the Japanese side spoke on the basis that a threshold of responsibility and capacity that should be met. Here, too, the Japanese view of Africa was evident, which claimed that in Africa, where Western donor aid was prevalent, the recipients were still aid-dependent, making it hard to affirm that the spirit of self-help was being reached.

In the 1990s, Japan had a significant presence as the top donor and it held an ambition to lead the international aid community. Besides, it was becoming recognized internationally that Western donors had intervened excessively in recipients’ affairs. Japan “invented” “ōnā shippu” as a product of Japan's ambition and a response to the past failure of international aid with the aspiration to promote it as “ownership.” However, the gap between “ōnā shippu” and “ownership” became apparent, as ownership emerged as a core concept in the “aid-effectiveness” modality throughout the late 1990s and the first decade of the 2000s. Finally, the Japanese government lost interest in “ōnā shippu” and stopped using it in key development cooperation documents.

This chapter traces how Japan projected its own concepts onto ownership as a critical policy idea in Japan's development cooperation and the rise and fall of “ōnā shippu.” The following section reviews the “ownership” argument, while introducing “ōnā shippu.“ Then, the following sections articulate the trajectory of “ōnā shippu.” Sect. 3 introduces the birth and rise of “ōnā shippu.“ Next, Sect. 4 argues that the Japanese government struggled to promote “ōnā shippu” as “ownership” in the age of “aid effectiveness.” Subsequently, Sect. 5 explores the process of the fadeout of “ōnā shippu” along with the decline of the “aid-effectiveness” trend and “ownership.” Finally, Sect. 6 provides a conclusion.

2 “Ōnā Shippu” as a Japanese Product Reflecting Its Development Experience and Aid Model

The rise of “ōnā shippu” was parallel to the rise of “ownership” in international development discourse. This section first presents the review of the “ownership” argument, and then introduces the contents of “ōnā shippu.” The conditionality imposed on aid by the structural adjustment approach taken from the 1980s to the 1990s led to international donors’ excessive intervention in recipient countries’ policies and insufficient development effectiveness (Graham 2017). In response, the international community started to take developing countries’ ownership as a critical concept in international development assistance. Whitfield (2009) states that ownership is “a vague term that appeals to people for different reasons.” However, she defines ownership as the degree of control recipient governments are able to secure over policy, design and implementation (ibid., p. 5). “Control” is an instrumental word that encompasses both the responsibility and right aspects of ownership.

The discussion of ownership in international fora concerns the unequal power relation among stakeholders, particularly between aid donors and recipient countries (Keijzer and Black 2020; Hasselskog 2022; De Renzio et al. 2008; Black 2020). Some European donor countries have started adopting new aid modalities, such as general budget support, to promote the ownership of developing countries, avoiding donors’ frequent and extensive interventions in aid activities. The European donors have moved away from project-type interventions, which they believe can limit the recipient country's ability to manage aid administration. Its proponents argued that budget support can foster greater recipient country ownership by allowing recipients to use their own financial management systems and budget procedures, which gives them more control over how aid is spent (Swedlund 2013; Armon 2007).

International development research on ownership points out the selectivity argument “—i.e., that donors should select the ‘right’ recipients, which in this case means strong owners, however defined (Jerve and Hansen 2008, p. 8).” Some donors impose conditions on their aid to recipient countries under the name of ownership (Hasselskog and Schierenbeck 2017). In other words, “ownership” became a pretext for donors to choose their recipients and aid projects they liked, given the ambiguity and discretion of the donors to define the term.

The debate on ownership also intensified regarding the question of who should possess ownership. The scope of the ownership argument extended to cover the domestic stakeholder relationship within recipient countries. The leadership of recipient governments was regarded as a prime actor for effectively formulating and implementing policies at the national level (Jerve et al. 2007). Furthermore, the discussion extended to encompass the involvement of various stakeholders within recipient countries, such as parliamentarians and civil society, in the decision-making processes of development policies, known as “democratic ownership” or “comprehensive ownership” (OECD 2011a, b; Hori 2014; Smith 2005). As the discourse on effectiveness dwindled, ownership passed its peak, and the fervor seen in the past is no longer as prominent, albeit remaining one of the important principles in development cooperation (Hasselskog 2022; Hasselskog and Schierenbeck 2017).

The formation of “ōnā shippu” coincided with a period of international interest in reducing donors’ interventions in recipient countries’ affairs Japan was exploring its potential to shape its own aid philosophy and seeking to promote it internationally. The notion that recipients should strive for self-reliance by avoiding excessive dependence on international aid aligned well with Japan's aid philosophy of “self-help” (see Chap. 8). The Lexicon of international cooperation (4th edition) compiled by the Japan Society for International Development treats “ōnā shippu” as a synonym of jijo doryoku (self-help efforts). The Lexicon introduces “jijo doryoku” as the principle of Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) “based on the idea that developing countries’ efforts make their own development possible,” stating that “assistance from outside is supposed to be supportive in facilitating the realization of those efforts. Japan has respected self-help effort based on its own experience as an aid recipient (The Japan Society for International Development 2014). Likewise, official documents by the Japanese government repeatedly used jijo doryoku (self-help efforts) as a synonym of “ōnā shippu” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2004, 2007).

Besides self-help efforts, Japanese concepts such as jishusei (autonomy) and shutaisei (subjectivity or agency) were applied to “ōnā shippu” in some cases. As mentioned later, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs documents sometimes treated “jishusei” (autonomy) as a synonym for “ōnā shippu” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2004). The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) proposes the term “shutaisei (subjectivity or agency)” as a translation of the loanword, “ōnā shippu.” NINJAL explains that the term is often used in the international development cooperation context, where it refers to recipient countries’ awareness of their own development needs and their active participation in addressing them. When referring to an issue as the recipient's own problem, the institute proposes to replace “ōnā shippu” with the term “当事者意識 (tōjisha ishiki, stakeholder awareness)” (The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics 2006).

Many researchers and aid implementing agencies, such as JICA, use the term “shutaisei” to explain “ōnā shippu” (JICA 2006; Ohno and Ohno 2006; Shinozaki 2007; Hori 2014). “Jishu (sei)” means “to act independently without interference or protection from others (Daijisen)” and also conveys the idea of self-reliance and autonomy. “Shutaisei” means “the attitude of acting according to one’s own will and judgment (Daijisen)” and suggests that a country or community is actively participating and driving its own development process. It emphasizes a sense of agency and engagement in shaping one’s own future. While both terms highlight the importance of self-determination and independence, they still have differences in nuance. “Shutaisei” emphasizes active leadership and engagement, whereas “jishusei” focuses more on autonomy and freedom to make decisions.

These Japanese concepts synonymous with “ōnā shippu” reflect the individual autonomy and self-reliance commonly present in “ownership” but also encompass Japan's collectivist tendencies. “Ōnā shippu” emphasized the aspect of responsibility imposed on the recipient, compared with ‘ownership’ used in the aid community outside of Japan. This perspective of “ōnā shippu” pays less attention to the aspect of control by the recipient, which is aware of the power asymmetry between the donor and the recipient. Under “ōnā shippu,” the recipient country was considered the prime focus, and its leadership was emphasized. In other words, “ōnā shippu” primarily focused on the government, with limited consideration of the various domestic stakeholders. In the late 1990s, Japanese aid was criticized for supporting the self-help efforts of recipient governments but neglecting the development of self-help capabilities among the populations of recipient countries (Matsuda 1999, p. 450). Throughout the 2000s, a participatory approach was taken in Japan's international development projects, but it remains unclear whether the involvement of citizens in national development decision-making was consciously addressed in the context of “ōnā shippu.”

Rather, the view of “ōnā shippu” expects appropriate responsibility from the recipient side, such as imposing their own burden on the residents as members of the state or community. For example, Japanese aid agencies appreciate that local people are paying out of their own resources for their aid projects as an expression of “ōnā shippu,” under the understanding of “self-help,” instead of relying entirely on aid (JICA 2006). This view of “ōnā shippu” was compatible with the normative consciousness prevalent in Japan, which does not favor dependence on others, exhibits agency and subjectivity, and values self-help: thus, it was an easy-to-understand concept for the Japanese people, including Japanese policymakers. The discourse prevalent among high-ranked aid officials pointed out the contrasts between foreign aid by Western donors and Japan, saying that while Western aid was often characterized as “noblesse oblige” or charity toward less fortunate countries, Japanese aid supports self-help efforts. Such voices meant Japan’s support for the efforts of people in developing countries improved their situation through emphasizing their own responsibility (Nishigaki et al. 2009, pp. 178–188). Hayashi (2021, p. 25) states that such discourse comparing Western and Japanese aid was frequently discussed and amplified within the practical realm of Japan’s ODA.

This issue is closely related to the Japanese aid philosophy, which stems from its own experiences in catching up with the West since the Meiji era, reconstructing the nation after World War II, and supporting East Asia’s successful economic take-off (Shinozaki 2007). Accordingly, the concept of self-help effort includes the aspiration for growth with eventual graduation from aid. As such, while sharing much in common with what is advocated by today’s international development community, the Japanese concept connotes a slightly broader spectrum of action than “ownership” (Ohno and Ohno 2006; Shinozaki 2007).

Moreover, Japanese officials thought that “ōnā shippu,” based on self-help efforts, agency, and autonomy, was consistent with the characteristics of Japan’s foreign aid, such as “yōsei shugi” and yen loans. The emphasis on one's own subjectivity, self-help, and responsibility as a condition for aid provision is a distinctive feature of the Japanese understanding of “ōnā shippu.” Due to its historical background, Japan’s ODA has been less involved in the recipient country’s policies than Western donors, thereby respecting their sense of ownership. Yōsei-shugi, the request-based principle in the ODA project formulation, exemplifies Japan’s respect for recipients’ “ōnā shippu” regarding request-based project selection (see Chap. 7). Also, yen loans were considered as an aid scheme to respect “ōnā shippu” to promote recipients’ self-help efforts (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2004; JICA 2019). Regarding the amount of financial assistance provided, ODA loans have accounted for the majority of Japan’s aid. Shinozaki (2007) explains that loans, unlike grants, impose a repayment obligation, forcing recipient countries to consider more seriously the use of funds, project priorities, and costs. He further argues that this leads to the development of effective ways to utilize aid and, in turn, clarifies the responsibility and agency of developing countries, thereby helping recipient countries exercise “ōnā shippu” (Shinozaki 2007, p. 61). Therefore, for the Japanese government, “ōnā shippu” was a convenient concept that could legitimize aid practices with Japanese characteristics, such as the request-based principle and yen loans.

3 Japan's Ambition to Lead the International Aid Community

This chapter argues that the Japanese-style “ōnā shippu” is a product created for Japan’s ambition to enhance its presence as a major donor in the aid community since the 1990s. This section examines the historical background of Japan's version of “ōnā shippu” based on respect for recipients’ self-help effort and agency. Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs positioned the decade between 1992 and 2002 as a “Philosophy Shaping Period” of its foreign aid (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2004, p. 44). In the 1990s, as other DAC countries reduced their ODA due to donor fatigue, Japan became the top donor in terms of the amount of aid provided and began to influence the international aid landscape. Then, the Japanese government started to formalize its aid idea. In 1992, the first ODA Charter was approved by the cabinet to consolidate the basic idea and strategy of Japan's foreign aid. In the Charter, Japan proposed its new concept of “support for self-help efforts” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 1992; Chap. 8). Later, self-help efforts became the main ingredient of “ōnā shippu,” along with ownership, which was then a trendy concept in the international aid community.

In this context, Japan introduced the concept of “ōnā shippu” for the first time through the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). TICAD is an international conference on African development initiated by Japan in 1993. Even today, TICAD is described as “an embodiment of the idea of ‘ōnā shippu’ by African countries and ‘partnership’ with the international community in African development, co-hosted by the United Nations, UNDP, the World Bank, and the African Union Commission” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2022).

“Ōnā shippu” emerged as a critical concept in Japanese aid policy when the Japanese government was preparing for the launch of TICAD. Owada Hisashi, who was involved in establishing TICAD while serving as Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs, had questioned Japan's approach to developing countries during the Cold War. Facing the end of the Cold War, he was concerned about how Japan could transform its “passive diplomacy,” which had been careful to avoid causing trouble as a defeated country in World War II, into a “proactive diplomacy” that corresponded with the nation's strength. TICAD I, launched in October 1993, upheld the basic concepts of “ōnā shippu” and “partnership” developed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. While these terms are now commonly used in international development, TICAD I was instrumental in establishing them as international concepts. According to Shirato (2020a), Japanese officials thought that many African countries lacked a sense of responsibility for their own development at the time.

In the formation process of “ōnā shippu,” the Japanese officials had an awareness of its distinctiveness or superiority in contrast to Western aid. Okamura Yoshifumi, a former TICAD ambassador and a diplomat deeply involved in Japan's diplomacy with Africa, asserts that “ōnā shippu” refers to promoting self-help effort, where the recipient country must carefully consider and take responsibility for promoting economic and social development (Okamura 2019, p. 4). Furthermore, he goes on to say the following:

First, when addressing various African problems, Western countries tend to show their colonial past and Christian sentiments. This attitude is succinctly summarized as “charity” and “missionary work.” They give aid because the people are poor, and they teach because they are ignorant. This attitude is discernible. Of course, African countries also value democracy, human rights, and good governance. However, when Western countries speak of these values, African countries see them as imposing or reflecting colonialism. They don’t feel such resistance against Japan. Instead, Japan denies the recipients’ attitude of waiting to receive and waiting to be taught, which we see as “amae (dependency).” If you do not make effort yourself, giving you aid or teaching you is useless. This superficially appears to be a distant attitude. However, Africa welcomed it. This is because there is a premise that they can do it themselves. The attitude of believing in Africa’s ability resonated with the self-esteem of Africans (Okamura 2019, p. 5).

Here, “ōnā shippu” was seen not just as recipient autonomy in aid activities but as representing the recipient country's responsibility over the entire development process. The term “partnership” refers to external aid contributions to facilitate this (Okamura 2019, p. 4). In the “ōnā shippu” perspective, Western aid is often viewed as fostering the recipients’ excessive dependence on aid, while Japanese aid is seen as genuinely supporting the development rooted in the self-help efforts of developing countries.

The Japanese government was trying to use “ōnā shippu” as a tool for the selectivity of Japanese aid recipients to ensure the fulfillment of the responsibility of the recipient side for self-reliant development. The sixth article of the Tokyo Declaration includes the following statement: “We, Africa's development partners, reaffirm our commitment to providing priority support to countries undertaking effective and efficient political and economic reforms (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 1993).” Shirato (2020b) highlights a conversation between two former MOFA officials in the oral history record of this article:

This (the sixth article of the Declaration) is exactly about “ōnā shippu” and partnership. The key point of this declaration is the ōnā shippu of Africa and the partnership of aid towards it. In other words, it is a declaration that says Japan will prioritize assistance to countries that have ōnā shippu. To put it the other way around, it means 'We will not provide aid to those who do not have ōnā shippu. Do whatever, we don’t care.’ In a sense, it is all your responsibility. This is a very revolutionary or clear statement of our position (Shirato 2020b).

The MOFA veterans meant that “ōnā shippu” became a selection criterion for Japan’s ODA. Ambassador Okamura also stated recipients’ own determination to conduct self-help effort is a prerequisite for Japan's aid provision or partnership (Okamura 2019, p. 4).

The international aid donor community officially introduced “ownership” in the new development strategy: “Shaping the 21st Century: The Contribution of Development Cooperation” adopted during the DAC High-level Meeting in May 1996. The document emphasizes ownership, proposing to respect participation and that which is “locally-owned.” Furthermore, the concept of ownership in the document reflects the Japanese perspective of “ōnā shippu”, namely, “self-reliance” and “self-efforts” (OECD 1996b). The Japanese government admitted that “Japan played a key role in the preparation process of this document (Economic Cooperation Bureau of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 1997).” Other donors also acknowledged Japan's leading role in formulating the strategy (OECD 1999). At the time, Japan placed a great deal of importance on this document. To implement effective aid drawing on the new development strategy endorsed in the DAC high-level meeting in 2016, Fujita Kimio, then JICA president, stated that it is essential to support the improvement of “ōnā shippu” in each developing country and promote cooperation among aid agencies to maximize limited aid resources (JICA 1998, p. 67).

During the 1990s to 2000s, when Japan's presence as a major aid donor country was firmly established, it strongly emphasized the concept of “ōnā shippu.” In 2003, Japan revised its ODA Charter to include a reference to “ōnā shippu” synonymized with jishusei (autonomy) (Economic Cooperation Bureau of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2003, p. 3). The revised Charter was the first basic policy document of Japan's ODA that enshrined “ōnā shippu.”

4 Struggle to Translate “Ōnā Shippu” into “Ownership” Under the Aid-Effectiveness Era

The Japanese government attempted to elevate its “ōnā shippu” into an international concept of ownership, and this Japanese leadership reached its culmination at the 1996 DAC strategy. However, Western donors did not agree to the specific content of this concept. Whereas the Japanese government sought agreement from other DAC donors, the Western donors continued to adhere to their deep involvement in recipients’ development policies, assertion of mutual accountability on aid and “partnership” together with “ownership” (Takahashi 2018, p. 231). The word “ownership” does not typically connote “self-help efforts.” As the aid-effectiveness era dawned and other donors, mainly European donors, shifted to program approaches. With ownership gradually emerging as a core international theme for evaluating aid effectiveness, differences between Japan and other donors widened, and Japan's approach grew less comprehensible to them.

From the 1990s to the 2000s, when Japan promoted its unique concept of “ōnā shippu,” several other donors criticized Japan for not respecting the “ownership” principle. Such donors claim that Japan was fully committing on aid effectiveness only because it emphasized project-type cooperation (Hayashi 2021). In turn, some voices in Japan did not understand why fiscal support, the alternative to project-type cooperation, would lead to the respect of “ōnā shippu.” They believed that Japan's aid was precisely what enhanced the “ōnā shippu” of developing countries.

While DAC and other major donors during this period were working to harmonize the principles and modalities of aid, Japan sometimes saw this as an issue that did not concern them. The differences in understanding various concepts, such as “ownership,” may have made communication difficult between Japan and Western donors, so communication with other donors was not always smooth (Hayashi 2021, pp. 17–23). The “ownership” issues of aid undermining recipients’ political or economic control are not as prevalent in Japan's ODA debates due to Japan's initially limited intervention in the policy-making of developing countries and the establishment of special government agencies for aid implementation. This background may have reinforced the Japanese understanding of “ōnā shippu,” which is distinctive from the understanding in the international arena.

The Japanese government has taken the position that yen loans are a form of aid that respects “ōnā shippu,” which encourages the self-help efforts of developing countries by giving them an incentive to plan and operate aid projects more seriously by imposing a burden on the recipients in the form of debt repayment (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2004). However, this idea may be incomprehensible when interpreted as “ownership as the degree of control recipient governments are able to secure over policy, design and implementation” (Whitfield 2009, p. 5). Rather, in some other donors’ views, yen loans do not provide greater discretion for recipient countries in project implementation due to restrictions on borrowing currencies and localizing procurement procedures compared to other donors’ aid. This perception gap on loans was caused by divergent views between “ōnā shippu” which considers the bearing some burden for aid projects to demonstrate self-help efforts.

Japan's “ōnā shippu” approach has yet to address the power relation among the recipients’ domestic stakeholders. Japan has been indifferent and unconcerned about the power asymmetry issues between donors and recipients, which have been discussed in the ownership debate (Whitfield 2009; Keijzer and Black 2020; Hasselskog 2022; De Renzio et al. 2008). The request-based project selection system is supposed to embody “ōnā shippu” by respecting the recipient governments’ preferences for aid projects. It involves the political elite in recipient governments, thereby sometimes neglecting other stakeholders’ input in recipient countries (see Chap. 7). As such, this system fails to address “inclusive ownership,” which means giving control to a wide range of domestic stakeholders in a recipient country (OECD 2011a, b; Hori 2014; Smith 2005).

A later series of efforts to improve the effectiveness of international aid culminated in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005. The Paris Declaration was adopted at the Ministerial-Level Meeting on Aid Effectiveness held in Paris in March 2005 under the auspices of DAC. The meeting intended to consolidate concrete measures for improving aid effectiveness and agree on implementation measures for the Paris Declaration as an international commitment. The Paris Declaration identifies ownership as the first of the five principles for improving aid effectiveness. The declaration enshrines ownership, stating that “partner (recipient) countries exercise effective leadership over their development policies and strategies and coordinate development actions.” The declaration emphasizes that donors must “commit to respecting partner country leadership and helping to strengthen their capacity to exercise it” (OECD 2005), though the term “self-help effort” was not used. The phrase “respect partner country leadership” corresponds to the concept of ownership as owners’ rights, while the phrase “help strengthen their capacity to exercise it” encompasses capacity development support. In its 2007 “ODA White Paper,” the Japanese government introduced ownership in parentheses as “self-help effort (ownership)” as the first of the five principles of the Paris Declaration. The white paper highlighted that “the Paris Declaration incorporates the principle of self-help effort, which was proposed by Japan's leadership in 1996 and is based on the new development strategy of the OECD-DAC, as well as the results-oriented approach, reflecting Japan's aid philosophy in its basic ideas” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2007). The Japanese government domestically endorsed the “ownership” in these international outcomes as “ōnā shippu” and Japan successfully led the dissemination of this concept, internationally.

The view of “ōnā shippu” based on the principle of supporting self-help efforts helped to compensate for the shortcomings of the budget support aid approach taken by European donors in the aid-effectiveness era by working to improve the capacity building of recipients. Japan's other major aid scheme is technical cooperation, which was criticized from aid-effectiveness perspectives by European donors during the aid coordination era. However, many studies have pointed out that budget support type aid also amplified the donor's superiority over the recipient and hindered the recipient's ownership (Swedlund 2013; Smith 2005; Whitfield 2009; De Renzio et al. 2008). Furthermore, given the recipient's lack of capacity, hasty budget support by donors has often undermined the recipient’s ownership, so that capacity building was recognized as essential for recipients’ ownership (Smith 2005). In contrast, Japan attempted to evolve its technical cooperation to enhance recipient “ōnā shippu,” beginning with an approach to capacity development. JICA has actively promoted this new approach to technical cooperation for improving “ōnā shippu” through capacity development in international forums in the early 2000s (Smith 2005, p. 446; Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2005).

JICA (2006b) defines capacity development as “the ongoing process of enhancing the problem-solving abilities of developing countries by taking into account all the factors at the individual, organizational, and societal levels.” The “Report toward Capacity Development (CD) of Developing Countries based on their ōnā shippu,” published by the JICA Institute for International Cooperation in 2006, articulates JICA's concept and practice of capacity development and its relationship with the Japanese-style “ōnā shippu” (JICA Institute for International Cooperation 2006a). The report states that “defining capacity as the ability of developing countries to solve problems on their own and considering it as a complex of elements including institutions, policies, and social systems, the concept of CD attaches great importance to proactive and endogenous efforts on the part of the developing countries.” However, naihatsusei (endogeneity, see Chap. 6) is translated as “ownership” in the English report summary. While endogeneity and ownership are not always interchangeable (JICA Institute for International Cooperation 2006b), “ōnā shippu” as “agency for self-help effort” can be used interchangeably for endogeneity. Japan’s technical cooperation projects taking CD approach addressed recipients’ capacity challenges, which were the bottleneck of the budget support approach by the European donors, so as to enhance recipients’ “ōnā shippu” (and ownership).

5 Fading Attempt to Promote “Ōnā Shippu”

The concept of “ōnā shippu” gradually lost prominence through the mid-2010s, as “ownership” has passed its peak along with “aid-effectiveness” modality in the international community. The several factors, such as persistent donors’ explicit conditionality and donor self-interests, contributed to the decline in prominence of “ownership” in international development discourse and practice (Hasselskog 2022; Fisher and Marquette 2016). Moreover, the emergence of “new donors,” such as China and South Korea, and the proliferation of public–private partnerships and philanthropic aid have also eroded the former influence of DAC, which was epitomized in the Paris Declaration (Hasselskog and Schierenbeck 2017, p. 325).

In 2015, the Japanese government revised its ODA Charter and introduced the new Development Cooperation Charter. The new charter includes the basic principle of “Cooperation aimed at self-reliant development through assistance for self-help effort” but does not use the term “ōnā shippu.” Instead, the Japanese term “jishusei” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2015b) is used, and the foreign loanwords that are conscious of the international context have been eliminated. In the English provisional translation version of the charter, “jishusei” is translated as “ownership,” and it is used when looking back on the past by stating that “Japan has maintained the spirit of jointly creating things that suit partner countries while respecting ownership, intentions and intrinsic characteristics of the country (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 2015a).”

Even in the latest Development Cooperation Charter revised in June 2023, while self-help efforts remained, “ōnā shippu” was absent. In this version, “jishusei (autonomy)” also disappeared. Thus, “ōnā shippu” vanished from the basic policy documents of foreign aid. It may be because the increasing agency derived from the rise of the presence of developing countries since around the mid-2010s has largely achieved what Japan's ownership advocates as “self-help efforts.” Thus, Japan may have lost the need to emphasize “ōnā shippu” that embodies it. Moreover, in the 2023 version of the Development Cooperation Charter, “offer-type” cooperation was launched. In the aid project selection under “offer-type” cooperation, the Japanese government considers “a foreign policy perspective” and “development scenarios,” and Japan actively proposes and forms projects without waiting for requests from recipient countries. This amounts to a movement to revise even the conventional request-based principle.

In these decades, Japan has stepped down from its position as a top donor due to its fiscal challenges. The resultant criticisms from Western donors attenuated Japan's motivation to lead the aid discourse based on ownership. The influence of traditional donors such as DAC on aid architecture has also declined (Hayashi 2021, pp. 14–15). Under the “post-aid effectiveness era,” the concept of ownership in the international arena has been transforming (Hasselskog 2020). Although Japan has suffered from domestic economic challenges, its government actively advocated new development cooperation initiatives, such as Universal Health Coverage and Quality Infrastructure Investment. Meanwhile, “ōnā shippu” lost its value for the Japanese government. The increasing presence of emerging donors, including Korea and other Asian countries obscures the “Japan brand” as the only advanced donor in Asia that can represent its own “self-effort efforts” for success, which had bolstered Japan’s incentives to advocate “ōnā shippu” in the international arena.

6 Conclusion

From the deadlock of Western-led aid, Japan, the then-largest donor in the 1990s, created “ōnā shippu” based on its own experience of late development and promoted it internationally. Japan proposed the concept of “ōnā shippu” as a key concept in international aid, confident of its status as a major donor. In the process of promoting this concept on the international stage using language that would be widely understood, Japan linked “self-help efforts” and “agency” to the loanword “ōnā shippu.” Since Japan's promotion of “ōnā shippu” in the mid-1990s, the term “ownership” came to be widely accepted in the international aid community in the historical contexts of the challenges caused by excessive “donorship.” In this new environment, the Japanese government pursued international leadership in its own way and asserted itself, which contributed to the evolution of Japan's aid (Takahashi 2018, p. 241). However, Japan faced a challenge from European donors in the aid-effectiveness era, as they had different understandings of ownership. While Japan views the lack of ownership as the recipient countries’ failure to pursue self-reliance, others see the lack of ownership as stemming from the deprivation of recipient countries’ rights to control their own development. This gap made it hard for Japan to communicate and cooperate with other donors.

Meanwhile, Japan’s practices based on “ōnā shippu” provided the capacity development approach that offset recipients’ capacity issues, insufficiently addressed by the European donors’ “ownership” approach. Replacing the former mainstream of providing aid through grants, loans are increasing in the current trend in the Western donors. This may represent a silent victory for the “ōnā shippu” idea that favors loan aid to enhance recipients’ self-help.

Over time, Japan became less interested in leading the international aid movement as international development cooperation was no longer dominated by traditional donors due to the increasing presence of diverse actors, such as emerging donors, private foundations, and business sectors. The concept of “ownership” became less prominent in discussions on international aid with the decline of the aid-effectiveness trend. As a result, Japan's attachment to the term “ōnā shippu” has attenuated, and it has vanished from the key development cooperation document. However, the notion of “ōnā shippu” as a concept that stresses responsibility, self-help, subjectivity, and autonomy in its Japanese translations has become entrenched in the discourse of Japan’s international development officials and researchers through the reproduction of knowledge in official documents and research publications. “Onā shippu” as self-help efforts was produced in an attempt by Japan to lead the international aid modality as a significant donor, and it remains a vestige of that dream today.