12
Mar
Japan International Cooperation Agency said Monday its new official development assistance charter would push for greater public-private partnership support.
Hiroyuki Uchida, head of Japanese embassy’s economic section, said public-private partnerships were the key to sustainable and inclusive growth. Jica is the agency that coordinates official development assistance for the government of Japan.
“PPP is very important tool to promote the country’s development,” Uchida said.
Uchida said while global official development assistance funds declined significantly from 40 percent to 20 percent in the past decade, “private funds, on the other hand, grew three times higher.”
He said this meant the government should start working with other sectors such as private companies. “This is the essence why we changed the word assistance to cooperation in our new charter,” he said.
Uchida said cooperation meant crafting a deeper relationship with the international community where assistance would be a two-way street or cooperation.
“The goal is to intensify the dialog between countries for greater cooperation,” he said.
Jica earlier announced the approval of its new development cooperation charter which was reviewed in 2003, after 60 years.
Jica said the term “development cooperation” refers to “international cooperation activities that are conducted by the government and its affiliated agencies for the main purpose of development in developing regions.”
The Japanese agency said “development” in the charter was used in a broader sense rather than in the narrow sense as it encompassed activities such as peace-building and governance, promotion of basic human rights and humanitarian assistance.
“Such development cooperation needs to enhance synergetic effects for development through strengthened collaboration with other funding and activities of the government of Japan and its affiliated agencies,” Jica said in a statement.
Source: http://manilastandardtoday.com/2015/03/09/jica-commits-to-support-ppp-projects/