The problem was partly solved by the establishment, in October 1976, of an Economic Cooperation Coordination Office in the Division, staffed by one officer of division director level. This was a complete reversal to the pre-1973 situation.
A Central Aid Agency
Questions of administrative reform in Japanese aid lead to the subject of a central aid agency. There is a long history of recommendations that such an agency be established in Japan and, although JICA was the closest approximation to a multi-purpose aid agency, at no time in its gestation period between 1972 and 1974 was there a suggestion that it should take on responsibility for the formulation and implementation of all aid policy. Indeed, there was never a well developed movement or political impetus for reform which was able to overcome the weight of the established bureaucracy, and ideas for change appealed always to notions of administrative unity
which it was in the interests of ministries (even the MFA) to avoid.
Calls for some form of economic cooperation agency in Japan usually followed criticism of the aid administration, especially of the need for internal coordination and policy consistency. The first such recommendation came from the Matsumura Committee (a group comprising LDP members wishing to promote relations between Southeast Asia and Japan) to the Prime Minister, Kishi Nobusuke, in August 1957, although
its initial suggestion of an economic cooperation agency outside the MFA was diluted to that of an economic cooperation bureau within the
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Ministry. This report was followed in January 1958 by recommendations from a Keidanren committee for a government agency, and by the Second Report of the LDP Special Committee on Overseas Economic Cooperation, which suggested that the Government "centralise the administration of
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economic cooperation". As it eventuated, only a department was created in the MFA and it was not until 1962 that a full bureau came into being.
These early moves helped the MFA aid bureaucracy expand, and eventually led also to the establishment of the OECF in 1961. Later, jurisdictional disputes between the Fund and the Eximbank prompted, at a ministerial level, new pressures for reform of the administration. These arguments were seen in the efforts of the Finance Minister, Tanaka Kakuei, to amalgamate the OECF and the Bank and in an idea of the Foreign Minister, Shiina Etsusaburo, as reported in the Asahi shimbun of 20
September 1964, to set up a new fund to promote aid to developing
countries. He envisaged this as a replacement for the OECF which would merge with the Eximbank.
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.
spokesmen continued to be concerned with the issue of an aid agency. Four senior men involved in economic cooperation recognised in 1966 the need for an agency, along the lines of those organisations in
8 0
other DAC member countries, able to coordinate and formulate policy. In March 1967, the Foreign Minister, Miki Takeo, pledged reforms during a policy speech to the Diet.^1 In a further statement in April, he acknowledged pressure from recipients to improve the aid system and said in particular that the MFA was studying the viability of an agency
82 as a prelude to a complete restructuring of the system.
While the MFA decided to shelve the agency plan and settle for an enlarged Economic Cooperation Bureau, Miki again called in July 1970 for a foreign aid agency under the control of the MFA. He hoped
8 3 that this would encourage the development of a long-term aid policy. As with most such appeals by officials and politicians, however, his
ideas lacked detail and impact. In fact, it was in the interest of the MFA to opt for the status quo and retain the wide control it had over
aid, if for no other reason than to maintain the strong foreign policy input into aid policy. According to an editorial on aid problems in February 1968, bureaucratic territorialism (kakkyoshugi) remained the obstacle to change, by preventing coordination between ministries
84 involved in the aid administration.
Ministers were not the only ones to raise the question of reform. The study of aid administration carried out by the Special Committee on Administration (Rinji gyosei chosakai) in 1963-64 made no recommendations about an agency, but suggested strengthening the M F A ’s Economic Cooperation Bureau and rationalising the division between the OECF and the Eximbank. It proposed a ministerial Advisory Council, with a Cabinet Counsellor (naikaku hosakan) as secretary, to initiate and
coordinate policy.
In February 1968, the Japan Committee for Economic Development (Keizai doyukai), one of the three major economic organisations in Japan, published a report by its Special Economic Cooperation Committee in
which it recommended the creation of an economic cooperation agency to 8 6 achieve consistency, flexibility and comprehensiveness in aid policy. This was echoed three years later in an interim report of the Advisory Council on Overseas Economic Cooperation, which advocated an economic cooperation agency for policy formulation, to be headed by a minister
8 7
but not responsible for implementation. The Council's final report, however, advised instead that an Overseas Development Cooperation Promotion Office be established in the Prime Minister's Office. This downgrading suggested the impact of ministry pressure on the Council.
Its compromise was that the Office "promote the improvement of
administrative arrangements" while "respecting as much as possible the independence of implementing ministries and agencies".
The Government party also put forward its proposals. One newspaper reported in March 1970 that the LDP's Special Committee on Economic Cooperation had decided to seek the merger of the OECF, the OTCA and the Japan Emigration Service (JEMIS), as part of a revision
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of the LDP's aid policy. There was no explanation of why these three agencies in particular should be integrated, but the idea was important in the light of the eventual form which the Japan International
Cooperation Agency took in 1974. Later meetings of the Committee concentrated on the reform of the OTCA and attempted unsuccessfully to garner support for proposals to give that Agency the power and money to provide cheap finance for business ventures overseas, especially
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