Jijodoryoku: The Spirit of Self-Help in Development Cooperation

Abstract

Jijodoryoku “self-help effort” is a central and prominent ODA policy concept that undoubtedly resonates amongst policymakers and industry stakeholders in Japan. However, attempts to systematically define and operationalize the concept are noticeably lacking within the development assistance literature. What such a policy principle entails in terms of its impact on, or coherence with, institutional practice, program design, or project logic, is worthy of critical examination. This chapter critically re-examines and attempts to refine the definition of jijodoryoku as a policy principle, by considering how the conceptualization of “self-help” in Japanese and international ODA policy has evolved over time. The chapter illustrates how current Japanese policy conceptualizes the term as an approach to ODA by examining the logical structure of high-level Japanese ODA policy, while distinguishing it from “self-reliance”, which can also be observed in global development policy. The historical and comparative examination of ODA policies presented in this chapter reveals how the policy principle of “support for self-help efforts” can be traced back to discussions among DAC countries regarding the sharing of the financial burden of assistance, which contrasts starkly to its current vernacular usage as an a priori condition of the approach to Japanese ODA. The chapter ends by considering the roots of “self-help” in Japan to argue that, rather than a concept denoting praxis, it would be more accurate to conceptualize jijodoryoku as a highly general and abstract term denoting the social-psychological state (i.e., the “spirit”) of a recipient, which could then be utilized to stipulate and evaluate general conditions for ODA recipients.

1 Introduction: De-Constructing Jijodoryoku “Self-Help Efforts”

Jijodoryoku (自助努力), or “self-help effort”, is a central and important concept that has been mentioned perennially in official Japanese government policy language to describe the “philosophy” of Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA). From a purely semantic perspective, jijodoryoku is a combination of two compound characters, jijo and doryoku. Although jijo can be read on its own as “self-help”, in this case, it functions as a grammatical modifier rather than an independent concept. Doryoku is the compound Japanese character and independent concept denoting “effort”. Together, the term translates directly as “self-help effort”, but is also defined within various dictionaries as a state in which one does “not rely on others”, or a state of self-sufficiency. The term can thus be interpreted semantically as a contractarian, Scanlon-esque concept rather than a virtue principle, where the principle of “taking self-help efforts” is perceived as contrary to the excessive or perpetual state of dependency, which is framed or perceived as an immoral or unethical state of being.

Within Japanese ODA policy language, jijodoryoku is then used to grammatically modify the word shien (支援), which means “support” or “aid”, to produce jijodoryoku shien “support for self-help efforts”. High-level Japanese government policy invokes the term jijodoryoku shien within the basic policies of Japanese ODA published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA). While it is intuitively quite easy to agree with the argument that publicly funded programs and initiatives should go to “support self-help efforts”, what such a policy principle entails in terms of its impact on, or coherence with, institutional practice, program design, or project logic, is worthy of critical examination. Although jijodoryoku is a central and prominent ODA policy concept that undoubtedly resonates amongst policymakers and industry stakeholders in Japan, attempts to operationalize the concept are noticeably lacking within literature on development assistance. The lack of such definitions makes systematic and theoretically sound policy coherence and coordination between development stakeholders practically infeasible. To contribute to critical discussions on how policy coherence and coordination can be enhanced among ODA stakeholders, this chapter attempts to re-examine and refine the definition of jijodoryoku “self-help efforts” as a policy principle, by considering the following question—how has the conceptualization of “self-help” within Japanese and international ODA policy evolved over time?

The next section outlines the current conceptualization of “self-help” in the basic policies of the Japanese Government’s ODA programs. These basic policies are listed in the ODA Charter, as well as the white paper for development cooperation—both published by MOFA.¹ Section 3 then describes the important distinctions that must be made between jijodoryoku as self-help efforts in Japan, and “self-reliance” in international policy discourse. The conceptual evolution of “self-help efforts” within Japan’s ODA policy will then be described in Sect. 4, by tracing back the different ways in which the term “self-help effort” has been invoked within domestic policy. Section 5 goes further back in time to outline the various ways in which “self-help” was utilized within international policy discourse via the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), before publication of the first ODA Charter in Japan. Section 6 provides a critical discussion on the current conceptualization of jijodoryoku, which I argue to be restrictive; and the policy implications of re-conceptualizing jijodoryoku as a more general term. The chapter concludes with a summary and synthesis of the contents.

2 Jijodoryoku Shien as an Approach to Japan’s ODA

The Japanese government announced and released a revision to the Development Cooperation Charter, also referred to as the ODA Charter, in August of 2023. The ODA Charter is a cabinet-approved document that outlines the high-level policy of Japan’s development cooperation initiatives. The Charter’s contents are drafted by an advisory panel established by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, consisting of academics and representatives from the private sector and NGOs. The Panel convened with relevant stakeholders and gathered public comments concerning ODA priorities to draft a Charter that was ratified by cabinet decision in June of 2023. Within this ODA Charter, “self-help” is first mentioned in the following manner.

Japan’s development cooperation aims for self-reliant development through support for self-help efforts by developing countries, with the spirit of working together to persistently create what suits partner countries through dialogue and collaboration based on a field-oriented approach (2023 ODA Charter, Section I-3-(3)-A).

and once more in the same sub-section:

…Japan aims to generate new value through such “co-creation” by leveraging its traditions of supporting self-help efforts, dialogue, and collaboration (2023 ODA Charter, Section I-3-(3)-B).

The placement of the above mentions of “self-help efforts” within hierarchical sections of the ODA Charter illustrates how self-help is conceptualized by the Japanese government as a general approach to aid, rather than a specific policy goal. To make this distinction, English readers must decipher the difference between “Basic Policies” and “Priority Policies” mentioned in the provisional English translation of the Charter. The Charter outlines the Japanese Government’s ODA activities in three main sections: (I) Basic Concept, (II) Priority policies, and (III) Implementation. The two passages above that mention “self-help efforts” are located in the first section under the Basic Concept, in a sub-section translated as “Basic Policies”:

• I. Basic Concept

  • (1) Purpose and background of formulation of the Charter

  • (2) Objectives of development cooperation

  • (3) Basic policies (基本方針)

    • (1) Contributing to peace and prosperity

    • (2) Human security in the new era

    • (3) Co-creation of social values through dialogue and cooperation with developing countries

    • A. …“Self-help efforts”

    • (4) Leading the dissemination and implementation of international rules and guidelines based on inclusiveness, transparency, and fairness

  • II. Priority Policies　(重点政策)

    […]

  • III. Implementation

    […]

As outlined above, the provisional English translation of the Charter uses the word “policies” twice—once in Section I-(3), and again in the title of Section II. In order to properly distinguish the “policies” mentioned in both the “Basic Policies” and “Priority Policies”, we refer to the original Japanese document. By doing so, we can see that “Basic Policies” is used to translate the Japanese word kihon hōshin (基本方針), and “Priority Policies” listed in Section II of the Charter is used to translate jūten seisaku (重点政策), resulting in both “hōshin” and “seisaku” being translated as “policies.” In this public policy context, seisaku is a specific and relatively more direct translation of the word “policy.” Hōshin, on the other hand, is a more abstract concept that encapsulates interrelated concepts such as “direction”, “guidelines”, or “plan”. For the purposes of this chapter, we will refer to the “basic policies” as the approach to aid.

With this assumption in place, the structure of the Charter reveals how the Japanese government separates the description of its Basic Concept, into Objectives (Section I-2), and Basic Approaches (Section I–3). It is within this description of basic approaches that “self-help” is mentioned twice. In other words, ODA has various objectives, and various ways of achieving these objectives. Supporting “self-help efforts” is thus one of the ways in which the Japanese government achieves separately stated development objectives, such as contributing “actively to the formation of a peaceful, stable, and prosperous international community under a free and open international order based on the rule of law” (ibid., p. 4) as well as “to contribute to the realization of Japan’s national interests, such as securing peace and security for Japan and its people and achieving further prosperity through economic growth” (ibid.). Furthermore, looking once again at statement I-(3)-C) of the ODA Charter, the language clearly states that “Japan’s development cooperation aims for self-reliant development through support for self-help efforts by developing countries” (ibid.), and specifies that “self-reliant development” is a sub-objective that is to be achieved through self-help efforts.

As a concept, “self-help” is thus fundamentally framed as a praxis, rather than a consequential motivation or objective behind aid within current Japanese ODA policy. While there is no description within the Charter to explain how self-help efforts effectively contribute to the attainment of specific ODA objectives, it is stated that the approach represents “traditions” that can be leveraged to create “new value” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2023, p. 5). Various narratives can be found in the policy-making and academic community regarding these traditional experiences. MOFA representatives and foreign policy have claimed that this experience generally alludes to the post-war reconstruction of Japan, which is what distinguishes “self-help” from the closely related concept of “ownership” (Sawamura 2004; Sunaga 2004; see also Chap. 9). The narrative of Japan’s successful post-war recovery is also often centered on the utilization of World Bank loans, rather than grants, which is part of the experience that is leveraged to justify the relatively high proportion of loans within Japanese ODA disbursements in comparison to other top OECD donor countries (Kawai and Takagi 2001) (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1

A structural representation of the role of “Self-help effort” in the 2023 Japanese ODA charter (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2023)

3 Distinguishing Jijodoryoku as Praxis in Japanese ODA Policy, from “Self-Reliance” as a Common International Development Goal

In English, the term “self-help” is quite similar, and often used interchangeably, with the term “self-reliance” within development assistance discourse. However, a closer examination and comparison of the previous examples of “self-help” in English translations of Japanese government policy, with international or “Western” discourse on “self-reliance” in the context of development assistance, illustrates that there are fundamental differences in how the terms are conceptualized. For example, certain strands of research concerning the concept of “self-reliant development” (Galtung 1976a, b; Stöhr 1984) gained traction in the international community through publications supported and sponsored by the UN in the 1980s. This area of research appears to aim for prescriptive policy implications, while also contributing to a critical normative discussion on the fundamental role of the state for development. For example, while self-reliant development is defined as “self-determined development of territorial communities based essentially on endogenous resources” (Stöhr 1984, p. 4), it is also prescriptively clarified that such development can occur at three scales: the local, regional and national. However, it is also claimed quite strongly that self-reliance “is profoundly anti-capitalist” (Galtung 1976a, b, p. 209), by the nature of the implications that endogenous growth represents, against the idea that excess labor and materials produced by regional competitive advantages should be traded in a global marketplace.

Putting aside such fundamental, ongoing, and unresolved debates concerning the role of the state (capitalist or otherwise) in international development, self-reliance can be considered to be a globally accepted value concept that underpins the objectives of development cooperation. For example, the U.S. Department of State’s Joint Strategic Plan for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) describes the US Government’s aims to provide support that promotes a path to self-reliance. Self-reliance is mentioned explicitly as a performance goal to “…strengthen partner country capacity to further its self-reliance” (US Department of State 2022, Performance Goal 3.1.1).

These references to self-reliance, and the American strategic plan in its entirety, however, do not use the words “self-help”. Similarly, Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development office invokes self-reliance specifically for regional security in the Gulf and Middle East (British GOV.UK 2022), while the New EU Consensus on Development mentions self-reliance in their Framework for Action, which describes the need to implement development cooperation for “building self-reliance” (European Commission 2017, DG–C–1, p. 34, para. 69). Again, neither document mentions “self-help” specifically.

Additional evidence to suggest that “self-help” as emphasized in formal Japanese ODA policy is a separate and distinct concept from “self-reliant development” within the international development community can be found by examining English translations of Japanese government policy in documents published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the most recent OECD Development Co-operation Peer Review of Japan (2020), Japan’s ODA charter is described as follows:

The charter outlines three basic policies: contributing to peace and prosperity, promoting human security, and self-reliant development and collaboration based on Japan’s strengths (OECD 2020).

The above summary removes the explanation that the Japanese government provides aid for self-reliant development “through assistance for self-help efforts”. Although we are unable to make any claims about whether removing self-help from the English translation was deliberate, strategic, or even conscious; the clear differences between English translations published by the Japanese government, and English translations published by the OECD, provide some basis to suggest that self-help and self-reliance are competing discourses within the international development aid community.

The paucity of “self-help” in development assistance policy outside of Japan is further highlighted by examining the OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews of the donor community. OECD Development Co-operation Peer Reviews are periodic reviews of the aid policies and programs of DAC (OECD Development Assistance Committee) member countries, which are publicly released on the OECD website.² A content analysis of 54 Peer Reviews of the aid policies and programs of 23 DAC donors dating back to 1996 reveals that almost all mentions of “self-help” occur in reviews involving Japan. Over half (33/54) of the total mentions of “self-help” are contained within the reports reviewing Japan’s aid policies. Germany is the only other country to have consistently mentioned “self-help” within Peer Reviews published in 1998 and 2001, but both Reviews included examiners from Japan. None of the other DAC donors were found to use the term “self-help efforts” in describing policies or approaches to aid within the reviews.³

The relationship between distinct concepts such as “self-help efforts” and “self-reliant development” in international development aid policy discourse could be hypothesized through various mechanisms. For example, the removal of “self-help efforts” from OECD translations of Japanese ODA policy descriptions could be evidence that the notion has failed to gain traction and establish itself as a key concept in international development policy agendas; or that a level of convergence is being achieved in which “self-help” elements are encapsulated by a growing and more prominent concept of “self-reliant development”. While there are many such hypothetical mechanisms that could explain differences in international policy agendas, we should first attempt to better define and understand what exactly is meant by the Japanese government when espousing “self-help efforts” in the context of international development. The next section attempts to address this issue by describing how the role of self-help effort has changed in Japanese ODA policy over time.

4 The Shifting Policy Logic of Jijodoryoku Shien as an Approach to Japan’s ODA

As mentioned briefly earlier, various claims and narratives can be found in the literature specifying the role of self-help efforts within Japan’s ODA policy. Some examples include basic assumptions that Japan’s focus on infrastructure development is consistent with, and an embodiment of support for self-help efforts (Yamada 2021); or claims that Japan’s development community has come to recognize the importance of self-help efforts based on its experiences as a recipient of external aid (Shinozaki 2007) for its post-war re-construction and development (Sunaga 2004; Kawai and Takagi 2001). Others also invoke the term to describe an even longer historical legacy of Japan’s journey before its post-war recovery, as an island nation that exercised self-help effort in its aspiration to become a global power and protect itself from colonization around the Meiji Restoration period (Udagawa 2017). As we can see, “self-help effort” appears to be a very general concept that can be applied to various contexts, making it a challenge to define within specific policy settings such as development assistance.

This section attempts to highlight the multi-dimensional nature of “self-help efforts” by illustrating how central claims surrounding the role of self-help efforts in ODA has changed over time within previous versions of Japan’s ODA Charter. The Japanese Government released its first ODA Charter in 1992 and has since updated the document in 2003, 2015, and most recently in 2023. This section will begin at the most recent ODA Charter and trace back the differences in how each preceding ODA Charter invoked the concept of “self-help efforts”.

4.1 Self-Help in the ODA Charter, from 2023→2015

As stated previously, the most recent version of the ODA Charter published in 2023 conceptualizes “cooperation for self-help efforts” as an “approach” or means by which conceptually independent development objectives can be achieved. That is, “Cooperation aimed at self-reliant development through assistance for self-help efforts…” (2023 ODA Charter, Section I-3-(3)-A, emphasis added). A noticeable difference between the most recent Charter and the previous version published in 2015, is that “self-help” appears to have lost some prominence, by being removed from the heading titles of the “Basic Policies”. As can be seen below, the 2015 Charter emphasized self-help efforts more prominently by including it in the heading title of the third “Basic Policy” of Japan’s ODA.

2015 ODA charter Development cooperation charter: For peace, prosperity, and a better future for everyone I. Philosophy    (1) Objectives of development cooperation    (2) Basic policies        A. Contributing to peace and prosperity through cooperation for non-military purposes        B. Promoting human security        C. Cooperation aimed at self-reliant development through assistance for self-help efforts as well as dialogue and collaboration based on Japanese experience and expertise (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2015)

2023 ODA charter Development cooperation charter: Japan’s contributions to the sustainable development of a free and open World I. Basic concept    1. Purpose and background of formulation the charter    2. Objectives of development cooperation    3. Basic policies       (1) Contributing to peace and prosperity       (2) Human security in the new era       (3) Co-creation of social values through dialogue and cooperation with developing countries            A. …cooperation aims for self-reliant development through support for self-help efforts (Ministry of foreign Affairs 2023)

Whereas “assistance for self-help efforts” was one of three basic approaches to Japan’s ODA in 2015, the 2023 version mentions self-help efforts only as part of an explanation for the third basic policy of “co-creating social values through dialogue and cooperation”. Going further back we will observe that “self-help effort” does appear to be continuously losing prominence in recent decades, and that previous versions of the Charter were also more specific about providing examples of “self-help efforts”.

4.2 Self-Help in the ODA Charter, from 2015→2003

While “self-help efforts” was removed from the third “Basic Policy” of the 2015 ODA Charter, the role of “self-help efforts” appears to have been relegated similarly in 2015, in comparison to the 2003 Charter. The 2003 ODA Charter lists “Supporting self-help efforts of developing countries” as the First basic policy of the Japanese Government (2003, Section I-2-(1)) and presents a strong and prominent argument for the role of self-help efforts in Japanese aid:

The most important philosophy of Japan’s ODA is to support the self-help efforts of developing countries based on good governance (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Japan 2003, emphasis added).

Here we see that “supporting self-help efforts” was not only “the most important philosophy” but also linked to good governance. Although the logic of this statement is difficult to decipher intuitively, the surface-level interpretation of this statement can be understood to mean that “good governance” is a criterion for selection used by the Japanese government (see also Chap. 5), to provide assistance to various developing countries; and that this assistance that is provided will be for “self-help efforts” (see Fig. 2). Further reading into the 2003 charter provides specific examples of aid that are considered to strengthen good governance, which are: human resources development, institution building including development of legal systems, and economic and social infrastructure building. The policy language, thus, implies that it can be assumed a priori that these examples are also representative of self-help efforts.

Fig. 2

The logical structure of ODA for Self-help in the 2003 ODA charter (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2003)

In this manner, by comparing the 2015 Charter to the 2003 Charter, we can observe how claims regarding the role of self-help efforts within development aid changed to, (a) support for self-help efforts as an approach to achieving self-reliant development (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2015), from (b) support for self-help efforts as a philosophy that is linked to aid that is distributed based on criteria of good governance (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2003). While the incorporation of good governance distinguishes one claim from the other, the more recent Charters clarify that aid for “self-help efforts” represents traditional practices, and that the Japanese government has gained expertise and experience to support this approach. On the other hand, the 2003 Charter clearly presents support for “self-help efforts” as an a priori assumption—there is no additional explanation as to understand how self-help efforts are appropriate or effective for enhancing good governance initiatives.

4.3 Self-Help in the First ODA Charter in 1992

The first ODA Charter represents a significant effort by the Japanese government to present a clear and coherent vision describing the principles of its ODA program. In response to internal and external criticism against its ODA program, we can identify the central role of “self-help efforts” in the first ODA Charter. However, once again we can observe differences in how the concept is invoked through its utilization in policy language. The 1992 Official Development Assistance Charter mentions “self-help efforts” in its “Basic Philosophy” as follows:

…Japan attaches central importance to the support for the self-help efforts of developing countries towards economic take-off (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1992, Sect. 1, emphasis added).

In contrast to the 2003 Charter that mentions “good governance” in relation to self-help efforts, the 1992 Charter mentions self-help efforts for its role in supporting developing countries “towards economic take-off”. The argument here is, therefore, that “economic take-off” is a goal that should be attained through “support for self-help efforts”. The basic structure of this argument is thus the same as the 2015 Charter, in that the goal of “self-reliant development” from 2015 onwards can be replaced with “economic take-off” in 1992 (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3

Comparison of structural representations of the role of Self-help in 2015 versus 1992

It should perhaps be noted here that “economic take-off” is not mentioned in the revisions of 2003 onwards and is replaced with priority issues of “poverty reduction” or “poverty eradication”.

In the first Charter, “self-help effort” is mentioned once more, in a description of priority issues. This section subsequently linked self-help efforts to human resources development, as follows:

A priority of Japan's ODA will be placed on assistance to human resources development which, in the long term, is the most significant element of self-help effort towards socioeconomic development and is a basic factor for the nation-building of developing countries (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 1992, Section 3-(2)-(c), emphasis added).

Here, we at last identify an explicit description of the nature of “self-help efforts”, conceptualized as a higher-level concept in relation to human resources development. Although similar to the argument being made in the 2003 Charter (Fig. 2), this argument explicitly defines human resources development as a specific element or example of self-help efforts (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4

Human resources development as an element of self-help effort in the 1992 ODA charter

In this manner, the first ODA Charter specifically claimed that human resources development is an element of self-help efforts. However, we can again observe some differences between Japanese and international policy documents. The OECD’s Development Co-operation Review of Japan published in 1996 states that “self-help” was one of the indicators utilized by the Japanese government to provide regular ODA disbursements to recipient countries, as follows:

Japan…attempted to match self-help and good governance on the recipient side by a predictable flow of resources on the Japanese side, guided by ODA spending targets (OECD 1996, emphasis added).

As was illustrated in Sect. 2, such noticeable differences between provisional translations of official Japanese government policy and OECD documents that interpret Japanese policy can provide an alternate lens to critically examine international development policy concepts. The next section will focus specifically on OECD documents, to uncover how the concept of self-help was discussed and described in the international community, prior to the first ODA Charter.

5 Before the ODA Charters: “Self-Help” in OECD Policy Discourse

The previous section illustrated how the conceptualization and logical structure of claims invoking “self-help efforts” in Japanese ODA policy shifted over three decades since 1992. Again, while the first Charter was published partly in response to pressure from the international donor community, within the government and amongst international donors, there were regular discussions, debates, and reports of ODA policies and practices much earlier than the 1990s, via the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the OECD. In particular, DAC Peer Reviews provide useful material to observe interactions between donor countries and the DAC Secretariat regarding ODA policies. While the earliest DAC Peer Review that is available online dates back to 1996, the current DAC Peer Review system has evolved from its beginnings in 1962, when the DAC established the practice of Annual Reviews of the development assistance efforts and policies of its member countries. Although unavailable online, these documents can be accessed through the archives of OECD headquarters in Paris.⁴

For example, in a review of Japan’s aid policies published in 1988, only 4 years before releasing its first ODA Charter, the DAC Secretariat describes how Japan invoked the principle of self-help during a discussion on the request-based principle (Chap. 7). In response to questions regarding Japan’s stance regarding the “conduct of bilateral policy dialogues” (OECD 1988, Section B-19), the Secretariat notes the high caution exercised by Japan in “not being viewed as interfering in the internal affairs of the recipient” (ibid.). The discussion goes on to mention self-help as a higher-level concept that encapsulates the request-based principle and non-interference. It stated that, because Japan’s aid is “intended to assist the self-help efforts of its recipients [,] it is appropriate to adopt an attitude of being receptive to requests” (ibid.). In other years throughout the 1980s, self-help was mostly mentioned in a manner closely resembling the “self-help as an approach to aid”, with repeated claims of the need to strengthen the political, economic, and social resilience of developing countries by supporting self-help efforts for development.

In contrast, some noticeably distinct and specific claims regarding the role of the self-help effort can be seen in various aid reviews, such as the review from 1984:

Food problems of developing countries should be solved primarily by their increasing food production through their self-help effort (OECD 1984, emphasis added).

In this example, the Japanese government is describing the sectoral allocation of their aid in response to a question that mentions the importance of self-sufficiency in food production, presumably to highlight and justify aid to the agricultural sector. This is an example of “self-help efforts” being conceptualized specifically as endogenous food production capacity, to address food insecurity and dependency on external food supply.

Another distinct argument for self-help efforts can be observed about a decade earlier in the 1975 Annual Review, which uses the term while describing financing challenges associated with inflation:

Japan has been experiencing…difficult[ies] on account of far higher costs resulting from price increase than those estimated at the time of aid commitment and additional assistance is requested. Japan has been dealing, with such cases, in principle, by requesting the recipient country to take self-help efforts, and there is a limited number of cases where settlements have been obtained (OECD 1975, emphasis added).

It is within this context of financial risks and burden-sharing that the earliest discussions surrounding self-help efforts are mentioned within DAC documents. The 1968 Aid Review describes how the Japanese government identified self-help effort as an issue that resonated with their own priorities after participating in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), stating that:

Particularly taking into account the conclusions reached at the second UNCTAD on the problem of self-help, Japan would strongly request recipient countries to attain concrete achievements in its self-help effort (OECD 1968, emphasis added).

Hynes and Scott have provided additional context for the “conclusions” being mentioned above that were made during the 2nd UNCTAD held in New Delhi (1968). Their working paper explains how UNCTAD participants agreed upon the need to improve the terms and conditions of aid, in response to pressure for increased concessional financing, as well as a general motivation from US-inspired attempts to share the burden of development assistance (Hynes and Scott 2013).

Early OECD policy documents from the 1960s thus invoke the concept of self-help to argue for the need for increased financial commitments (improved terms and conditions of aid financing) and burden-sharing (covering local costs) by recipient countries. The motive for presenting such notions in DAC aid reviews can also be interpreted as a response to early criticisms of the Japanese Government. The first-ever mention of “self-help” in the DAC annual aid review drafted in 1962 (Fig. 5) reveals what appears to be implicit criticism of Japanese aid approaches.

Fig. 5

An image of the cover page of the first ever DAC annual aid review of Japan (OECD 1962), archived at OECD Headquarters in Paris

In the first aid review, the Secretariat questioned Japanese representatives about problems associated with the “project approach” to aid financing. The Japanese government is questioned for its use of project financing as the exclusive means for providing relatively longer-term financing to recipient countries. The question implies that project financing may not be able to account for broader self-help requirements as follows:

Problems of Project Approach

• 10. Over 65% of Japanese official lending of more than one year maturity is extended for project financing. Do the Japanese authorities feel that the project approach permits full consideration to be given to the overall needs and development priorities of the recipient country? Does the project approach permit taking full account of the broader self-help requirements such as proper fiscal and monetary policies and the stimulation of local initiative? Could examples be given? (1962 DAC Annual Aid Review of Japan, emphasis added)

These implications set the stage for what would evolve to become more pointed and explicit criticism of the Japanese approach to aid via project financing in the following years. Previous work that analyzes the policy dialogue within the DAC (Maemura 2019) revealed that during this time, the Japanese government was in fact criticized explicitly for possibly neglecting the self-help efforts of developing countries.

We can thus observe multiple conceptualizations and claims regarding examples of self-help within the international community via policy discussions within DAC. This includes claims that self-help efforts are consistent with Japan’s emphasis on the request-based principle and non-interference; self-help effort as domestic food production capacity; self-help effort as the burden sharing of financial risks by recipient countries; self-help as strong fiscal and monetary policy; and self-help as local initiative within recipient countries.

6 Back to Its Roots: Advocating Self-Help “Spirit”

As we traced back the numerous and varied claims invoking “self-help efforts” by DAC and Japanese policymakers, the question remains: how can we make better sense of what “self-help effort” entails in the context of development assistance? This chapter began with a description of how present-day Japanese ODA policy utilizes “self-help efforts” as an a priori claim justifying its approach to ODA. Going back in time, we observed multiple claims and contexts in which “self-help” was invoked, indicating that the concept of jijodoryoku may have been poorly translated. With such a variety of different claims and arguments utilizing the same term, policy coherence and coordination regarding what constitutes self-help efforts is at best infeasible, and, at worst, unattainable. At the very least, Japan’s current conceptualization of jijodoryoku shien as an a priori assumption justifying its approach to aid is unable to produce any systematic understanding of what it actually means to “support self-help efforts”.

It is suggested here that jijodoryoku is not necessarily a poorly translated, or untranslatable concept per se, but is a highly abstract and general concept denoting the “state of being” or social-psychological attitude of a subject. From a historical perspective, jijodoryoku is commonly argued to have entered the modern Japanese lexicon as an educational and developmental philosophy in the mid-nineteenth century, through the best-selling book “Jijoron”, which was a translation of the book by Samuel Smiles entitled Self-help: with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859). Smiles’ book provides various descriptions and examples of successful industrialists from the British Empire, to build a staunch argument advocating for the central role of individualism as the driving force of national prosperity. In this book, he qualifies that self-help is a “spirit” (Smiles 1859, p. 18) that encapsulates the actions, experiences, and narratives that he describes. Although defining one’s “spirit” is a challenging task, classical social psychology can provide some useful definitions through the concept of “attitudes”. Attitudes refer to the cognitive state or belief about how particular actions lead to certain results, based on life experiences (Allport 1935), which is consistent with how arguments espousing the importance of self-help efforts are structured in Japanese ODA policy, as well as in literature (Shinozaki 2007). Jijodoryoku can thus be similarly interpreted as the attitude or social psychological state in which a subject is engaged in the act of helping itself.

Therefore, in contrast to the current conceptualization of “support for self-help efforts” which restricts the term to represent a specific approach to aid within Japanese ODA policy, jijodoryoku could be conceptualized more generally as one’s “spirit”. Logical congruency and policy coherence would in fact be more feasible by embracing this original conceptualization. By conceptualizing jijodoryoku as an attitude, the term can be applied as a policy principle that represents the conditions for aid, rather than an approach to aid—i.e., donor countries like Japan only wish to aid recipient countries that display or commit to self-help efforts. Donors would then be required to define or evaluate the various ways in which a recipient country can exercise self-help efforts.

To address the challenges of systematically defining the situations in which stakeholders could be acknowledged for their attitude of jijodoryoku, we can again take a semantic perspective and deconstruct the concept into its morphological components. By acknowledging that each component can take various forms or dimensions, numerous combinations can be conceived. In other words, jijodoryoku can be understood as the attitude, or state of being when a subject, the “self” (e.g., recipient countries, individuals, governing organizations, or specific sectors), engages in “effort” (e.g., commits or invests resources) towards a problem or issue that requires “help” (e.g., autonomously defined development goals, human resources development, domestic production capacity, financial burden sharing, improved fiscal and monetary policy, etc.).

Conceptualizing jijodoryoku as an attitude would allow policymakers to incorporate various contexts and conditions that represent self-help efforts, which do not refer to any specific aid delivery mechanism. For example, request-based processes that generate autonomously defined projects and proposals would be in line with the attitude of self-help. Exogenously defined  multilateral policy agendas, or mutually beneficial bilateral and/or regional strategies could also be consistent with the spirit of self-help efforts, by acknowledging the level of recipient “efforts” through ownership and accountability requirements, financing commitments, repayment agreements, or evidence of past efforts through previous or existing partnerships. In this manner, conceptualizing the spirit of jijodoryoku as a general condition for aid would enable policymakers to incorporate both normative arguments regarding the importance of self-help efforts in domestic or international policy agendas, as well as context-specific prescriptive arguments that outline how self-help efforts can or should be strengthened through cooperation with donor countries.

7 Summary and Conclusions

This chapter began by illustrating how Japan’s current ODA policy conceptualizes “self-help effort” as an a priori assumption characterizing the Japanese government’s approach to achieving separately defined development goals, such as “economic take-off”, or “self-reliant development”. The lack of a theoretical, or systematic definition of “self-help effort” was highlighted by tracing back the various conceptualizations of “self-help efforts” within Japanese and international ODA policy over time. Where definitions within earlier ODA Charters conceptualize jijodoryoku to be explicitly composed of human resources development, policymakers, and existing literature on Japanese ODA policy frame “support for self-help efforts” as a traditional approach that has established itself through Japan’s own development experiences. Although the terms “self-help” and “self-reliance” are often used interchangeably, a comparison of Japanese and international ODA policies reveals that while “self-reliance” is a common global development policy principle, “self-help efforts” as a specific principle is rarely mentioned, if at all, in high-level ODA policy discourse outside of Japan.

Although such findings suggest that self-help efforts are a uniquely Japanese ODA policy principle, further examination of OECD DAC aid reviews revealed how the current conceptualizations of self-help effort are the result of at least six decades of international policy dialogue between DAC donor countries. DAC aid evaluations dating back to the 1960s also contained various conceptualizations concerning the role of self-help efforts in development, such as the justification of the request-based principle and non-interference being consistent with self-help efforts; self-help effort as domestic food production capacity; self-help effort as the burden sharing of financial risks by recipient countries; self-help as strong fiscal and monetary policy; and self-help as local initiative. Notably, within discussions of international development aid policy at the OECD, the DAC Secretariat was in fact the first to mention “self-help” in its questions to the Japanese Government, in order to raise concerns regarding the impact of Japan’s project-based aid on the fiscal and monetary policies of developing countries.

With such a diverse set of claims invoking “self-help efforts” in ODA policy in Japan and in the international community, this chapter suggests that the concept has not necessarily been poorly translated but that it is more accurate to understand jijodoryoku as a highly abstract and general concept denoting the social-psychological attitude or “state of being” of a subject. Conceptualizing jijodoryoku as an attitude would be consistent with the historical origins of self-help within a modernizing Japan, dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, when Samuel Smiles described self-help as one’s “Spirit”. While it is admittedly difficult to define one’s “spirit” or attitude, the extensive scope within which a recipient country can be perceived to be taking “self-help efforts”, can be structured by acknowledging the multi-dimensional nature of the individual morphological components: which subject (“self”), requires or is committing resources (“effort”), for a development issue that requires assistance (“help”)? Logical congruency and coherence under a wider scope of policy could thus be attained by arguing that “committing to self-help efforts” represents a general condition for aid, rather than “support for self-help efforts” representing a specific approach to aid. Self-help effort as a condition to aid can allow donor countries to produce normative policy arguments concerning the role of self-help efforts in development, as well as context-specific prescriptive policy arguments outlining how recipient countries can achieve development goals through self-help efforts.

This chapter aspires to be part of an important theoretical and practical discussion that should continue to try and systematically define principles such as “self-help effort” in the context of development cooperation. Theoretical and systematic definitions are crucial for strengthening policy coordination and coherence among the various stakeholders in an increasingly inter-connected, complex, and rapidly evolving international development assistance community.

Notes

• 1. The institutional arrangement of Official Development Assistance in Japan includes three major stakeholders: (i) MOFA is in charge of policy formulation and implementation of Official Development Assistance through the International Cooperation Bureau; (ii) the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is an Incorporated Administrative Agency (also referred to as an Incorporated Public Entity) mandated to implement international cooperation; (iii) JICA then commissions projects to the private sector or NGOs to execute aid initiatives with partners in developing countries. MOFA policy thus becomes a natural focal point to analyze high-level Japanese ODA policy.

• 2. https://www.oecd.org/dac/peer-reviews/.

• 3. Other minor examples of “self-help” include two mentions of an NGO called “Self Help Development International” by Ireland, and one mention of self-help in the context of a specific food security project by the UK’s DFID.

• 4. DAC Annual reviews published between 1962 and 1996 have been compiled and examined for this chapter through previous work by the author.