The contribution of japan to the development of central asian countries through official development assistance

Introduction

Japan prioritizes mutual interests in development cooperation for itself and its partner countries. Based on its experience and practice, it fights poverty, environmental degradation and economic backwardness, respects the right of private ownership in partner countries, and supports development based on socio-cultural values.

Central Asia and the Caucasus are surrounded by Russia, China, South Asia, the Middle East and Europe, and the stability and development of this region is important for the whole of Eurasia, including the development and stability of Japan. Japan supports nation-building in a free and open Central Asian region, which allows for the improvement of the principles of the international order based on the rule of law, as well as the growth of sustainable development.

Japan's aid to the countries of the region is mainly carried out through Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on the basis of the Official Development Assistance Program.

Materials and methods

In this research work was used “Diplomatic bluebooks”, Annual JICA Reports, the information of the official web-sites of Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tadjykstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Such as, articles and books of scholars served to open unique features of each region and Japan’s approaches.

The interaction and implementation of Japan's policy towards the countries of Central Asia began with the promotion of development within the framework of the principles of human rights, democracy and free market economy.

Discussion and results

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) was established in August 1974 as a result of Integration of Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency (OTCA) (established June 1962) and Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) (established April 1965). The history of technical cooperation with the participation of the Japanese government goes back to the period of the Colombo Plan and Technical Cooperation Projects, which began in October 1954.

The new JICA was launched on October 1, 2008. It was formed as a result of the merger of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the former Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency's ODA Loan Department, and now the new JICA is responsible for technical assistance, grant assistance and ODA loans [17]. JICA is a joint administrative agency that manages projects within Japan's Official Development Assistance Program, and is one of the world's largest bilateral aid agencies supporting socio-economic development in developing countries in various regions of the world [5, C. 2]. There are three main categories of Japanese ODA assistance: yen-based loans, interest-free grants, and technical assistance.

The purpose of loans in yen is to support the development of economic and social infrastructure in the host country. These loans were typically requested by the recipients and used to build airports, power plants, and dams. From the point of view of the development of social infrastructure, these loans are aimed at financing medical development projects, as well as groundwater infrastructure development and educational projects.

Interest-free grants were mainly used in developing countries in the fields of medicine, poverty alleviation, agricultural development and provision of basic human needs. Projects that received interest-free grants in Central Asia focused mainly on education and human development.

Technical assistance projects consist of sending experts in a specific field in order to teach the host country about Japan's experience in strategically important areas. In addition, this type of funding was used to train various specialists both in the host countries and in Japan, as well as to finance in-depth studies of some of the issues facing the host countries. These funds in Central Asia were used to send Japanese specialists to Central Asia, as well as to support legal, medical, energy and agricultural infrastructure development projects, and to finance the activities of Japanese centers in the region [3, C. 26]. Currently, the three main activities carried out by the Japan Human Resources Development Center projects are Business Courses, Japanese Language Courses, and Mutual Understanding Activities, which are the main types of technical assistance.

JICA has been actively working in developing countries to build resilient and inclusive societies. In the coming years, JICA plans to continue working on digital transformation to further develop cooperation [5. C.42-43].

Approximately 65 years have passed since Japan made its first efforts toward international education cooperation in developing countries. In 1954, the Japanese Government Scholarship program for foreign students was established, one of the earliest Japanese official development assistance (ODA) projects in the education sphere. In the same year, 17 students from Asian countries were accepted into the program. Subsequently, technical cooperation projects for agricultural and industrial vocational training in four Asian countries were launched in 1959. From today’s perspective, these projects were small in scale. However, as Japan’s ODA grew along with the country’s rapid economic development, educational cooperation projects expanded to include a variety of subsectors, ranging from basic education to higher education, along with technical and vocational education and training (TVET). Today, development cooperation throughout the world has evolved under the new framework for global governance embodied by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Consequently, Japan’s international education cooperation also faces a significant paradigm shift [9, C. 9].

The first ODA donations for the countries of the region amounted to 2.57 million dollars in 1993, and in 2008 this figure reached 108.48 million dollars [11, C. 171]. By 2019, the amount of ODA allocated to the countries of the region is 601.7 billion yen in loans, about 105.7 billion yen in grant aid and 63.2 billion yen constituted technical cooperation. This indicator placed Japan among the supporters of the development of Central Asian countries.

After the independence of the Central Asian countries, Japan began to help in a wide range of areas, from the development of infrastructure for education, health and roads, airports, power plants, etc. to the development of human resources. In 2006, Japanese Foreign Minister T. Aso mentioned Official Development Assistance (ODA) as the first aspect among Japan's various achievements. To put this in a broader comparative perspective, T. Aso cites that Japan's official development assistance is about 30 percent of the aid given to Central Asia by major countries to help develop Central Asia as a corridor of peace and stability [2, С. 493-494]. Especially in the period up to 2010, large projects were implemented in the region. These include:

In Uzbekistan:

1. The telecommunications network expansion project was implemented in 1995 and 1999 and aimed at establishing a digital communication system, transmission system, radio broadcasting system and wireless telephone networks in order to improve general telecommunication and broadcasting services in the central and western regions ( ¥ 12,700 million, ¥ 12,692 million).

2. The project on the improvement of railway passenger transport was implemented in 1996. In order to maintain and improve the capacity of passenger transport, the construction of a workshop for the repair of railway passenger cars in the city of Tashkent, the purchase of new passenger cars and spare parts directed (¥ 6.102 million).

3. Modernization of three local airports - in 1996 and 1999, in three local airports in Samarkand, Urganch and Bukhara, in order to ensure flight safety and improve passenger transportation, reconstruction of runways, updating of passenger terminals and air traffic safety equipment. (¥ 15,526 million, ¥ 2,871 million)

4. The project aimed at the development of education - implemented in 2001, in order to purchase educational equipment for 50 model vocational colleges (agricultural secondary schools) and to develop human resources with basic and professional experience in Japan and Uzbekistan Conducting seminars for principals, teachers and management staff (¥ 6,347 million).

5. Tashkent thermal power plant modernization project - started in 2002, construction of a gas-fired combined power generation unit within the existing thermal power plant in order to provide stable electricity supply to the city of Tashkent and surrounding regions ( ¥ 24.955 million)

6. The Tashguzar-Kumkurgan new railway construction project started in 2004 and aims to build a new railway line and restore existing roads in the south of Uzbekistan in order to support the economic and social development of the region ( ¥16,359 million).

In Kazakhstan:

1. In 1995, the railway transport capacity development project carried out expansion of cargo transportation facilities, repair of some railway sections and other improvement works (¥ 7,236 million).

2. The Irtysh River Bridge Construction Project includes the construction of a new 1,630-meter suspension bridge over the Irtysh River in 1997 and a road through Semipalatinsk in northeastern Kazakhstan (¥ 21,530 million)

3. The Astana Airport Reconstruction Project started in 1998 and aims to build a new passenger terminal and control building, modernize the aircraft parking area, expand and repair taxiways to improve the function of the airport as an international airport (¥ 22,122 million).

4. West Kazakhstan highway network rehabilitation project in 2000 West Kazakhstan, Atyrau-Ularisk (492 km), Kustanai region border - Karabutak (249 km), Karabutak - Aktyubinsk (213 km) covers rehabilitation of severely damaged road sections to improve road safety (¥ 16,539 million)

5. Astana Water Supply and Sewerage System Modernization Project In 2003, water supply and sewerage systems in the capital city of Astana were repaired and expanded, water leakage reduction and other repairs were carried out. carried out works to improve the safety, efficiency and reliability of sewerage (¥ 21,361 million)

In Kyrgyzstan:

1. The modernization project of Bishkek-Manas International Airport in 1996 aimed to ensure compliance with air safety requirements of Bishkek-Manas International Airport. includes renovation of the passenger terminal at Adida, modernization of the air traffic control system, rehabilitation of the runway and other airport facilities ( ¥5,454 million)

2. The reconstruction project of the Bishkek-Osh road was implemented in 1997 and 1998. (¥ 3,016 million, ¥ 5,250 million)

In Turkmenistan: a rail transport modernization project was launched in 1997 to introduce a computerized ticketing system, including fiber-optic telecommunication lines, and conduct workshops to improve rail safety and service levels ( ¥ 4,505 million) [12, C. 7-8].

In 2010, JICA focused on nine priority directions in order to solve the problems in the Central Asian region. These directions of the action plan: measures against terrorism and drugs; demining border areas; poverty reduction; health care and medical care; environmental protection; prevention and reduction of losses of natural disasters; energy/water; It consists of solving problems in the field of trade and investments and transport [8, C. 46].

Even during the pandemic, Japan continued to help the countries of the region. In particular, in 2020, Japan and five Central Asian countries signed and exchanged notes on grant assistance for providing healthcare and medical equipment as part of the fight against COVID-19. As a result, through technical cooperation and grant aid projects, Japan delivered healthcare and medical equipment to five Central Asian countries in the amount of 190 million euros [15, C. 125].

In the post-pandemic period, Japan has delivered health and medical equipment worth a total of ¥3.2 billion to five countries as measures against COVID-19 [4]. We now analyze Japan's ODA on a country-by-country basis in the region.

After gaining independence in 1991, the Kyrgyz Republic made significant progress in democratization and transition to a market economy. However, due to the lack of competitive products other than gold and the underdevelopment of the investment environment, it could not attract enough foreign investors, its economy could not get out of the path of stable economic growth, and fell into a state of stagnation. In order to help reduce poverty through economic growth based on market reform, JICA is providing cooperation on transport infrastructure, agricultural and agricultural development, and human resource development for the transition to a market economy as the mainstay of economic growth. In accordance with the Kyrgyz Republic's goal of halving poverty by 2010, JICA has set a goal of helping to reduce poverty through economic growth based on the transition to a market economy [8, C. 48]. Thus, the first priority for the Japanese government became community empowerment through the introduction of local development projects. In this regard, the introduction of the concept of OVOP (One village - One product) in some regions of the country served as an important method of infrastructure development and capacity building, which allows the country to revive the regional economy and achieve socio-economic development. Japan's local development program has also played an important role in revitalizing local communities and the environment.

Japan's ODA investment in Kyrgyzstan until fiscal year 2020 is 37.580 billion yen in loans, 33.306 billion yen in grants, and 20.775 billion yen in technical cooperation.

On the basis of the investment partnership created through the negotiations held in June 2008, Japan is developing cooperative relations with Kazakhstan on the peaceful use of atomic energy, as well as the development of the uranium mining industry [8, C. 47]. Japan's investment in Kazakhstan under the official development assistance program until the 2020 financial year is 95.149 billion yen in loans, 6.824 billion yen in grants, and 13.708 billion yen in technical cooperation.

Tajikistan is located in the region that connects East and South Asia, Europe, Russia and the Middle East. The stability of Tajikistan is an important factor in ensuring the stability of the entire Central Asia and the entire Eurasian region, and it supports the independence and stability of neighboring Afghanistan. I am aware of the efforts of the international community to ensure is necessary to advance. Paying attention to this, Japan also believes that it is important to provide assistance in order to achieve peace and stability in the country, and to achieve economic development.

Tajikistan's civil war ended with the signing of a peace accord in 1997, and the government has since pursued macroeconomic stabilization and structural reforms. Tajikistan has recorded positive GDP growth since 1997, recording 1.7 percent GDP growth for the first time that year. In August 2006, JICA opened its representative office in Tajikistan [14, C. 81]. In 2005-2008, the country had a high growth rate of gross domestic product (6-10%). This was mainly due to the increase in international prices of raw cotton and aluminum as the main national exports, and the flow of cash sent by migrant workers to work in Russia and other countries. JICA provided Technical Cooperation for Tajikistan on the project to improve the basis of agricultural development through grant support for the development of roads and improvement of water supply in areas bordering Afghanistan. In April 2009, the Japanese government developed an aid program for the Republic of Tajikistan. Four priority directions of assistance are expressed in it: development of villages and improvement of industry; transport (road development, maintenance and management); Cooperation relations on border control and development of basic social services have been further improved [8, C. 48].

In February 2022, the total amount of grants allocated by Japan to the Republic of Tajikistan amounted to 181.5 thousand US dollars. Education and health care are given priority, and in 2021, grant agreements were signed for 20 new projects, including 12 education and 5 health care projects. As an example of such projects, if we think about the project of reconstruction of the building of the state enterprise "Prosthetics-Orthopedic Plant" in Khorug city, which serves 3000 people every year, this project was implemented in cooperation with the representative office of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Tajikistan, and equipped with the appropriate equipment. was installed and the training of the factory employees was started. Within the framework of the GGP program, 2 projects on the reconstruction of the state enterprise "Prosthetics and Orthopedics Factory" were implemented in 2015 in the city of Khojand and in 2017 in the city of Kolob. This is the third GGP project for the Prosthetics-Orthopedic Factory state enterprise, which completes the reconstruction of all such factories in the regions. From 1996 to 2022, the Japanese government supported 441 humanitarian projects worth 35.9 million dollars aimed at the development of the Republic of Tajikistan under the GGP [18].

JICA conducted a project to invite Turkmen parliamentarians and government officials to Japan to study and exchange ideas on Japan's post-war reconstruction process and parliamentary management [8, C. 48].

In September 2006, Japan announced four priority areas of assistance to the Republic of Uzbekistan (supporting the market economy and the development of human resources and the formation of institutions for the development of the economy and industry; support for the reconstruction of the social sector has developed an aid program that includes "support; renewal and improvement of economic infrastructure; promotion of interregional cooperation".

Among these priorities, special attention is paid to the development of human resources. In 2000, JICA opened the Uzbekistan-Japan Human Development Center in order to promote the development of Uzbekistan's market economy and strengthen mutual understanding between the two countries. offered programs to develop mutual understanding. From the beginning of its activity until 2010, visitors to the center covered about 460,000 people [8, C. 47]. The center contributes to the rapid economic growth and living standards achieved by Uzbekistan in recent years. In addition, JICA has been supporting economic growth in Uzbekistan by upgrading and improving infrastructure, such as the construction of power plants and new railways, and developing enterprise legislation. Japan's April 2012 aid policy for Uzbekistan includes three main areas of focus: 1) renewal and improvement of economic infrastructure (transport and energy), 2) development of human resources to facilitate the transition to a market economy. and support for institutional building and economic and industrial and 3) support for restructuring the social sector (agriculture and development and health care). Based on this, JICA promotes cooperation in the fields of electricity generation and railway projects, development of human resources in local business through the Uzbekistan-Japan Human Development Center, improvement of the legal infrastructure for entrepreneurship, and cooperation in the fields of agriculture and health. provides From 1993 to 2019, Japan provided preferential loans in the amount of 2.52 billion dollars to Uzbekistan within the framework of JICA programs. Also, 329 students received grants from the Japanese government to study master's and doctoral studies at Japanese universities, 2,416 Uzbek specialists returned from internships in Japan. 335 volunteer experts from Japan were sent to Uzbekistan to teach Japanese language, computer technologies, business management, economy, law, health care, sports, and tourism. Through the Bank of International Cooperation of Japan, 7 projects with a total value of 1.9 billion dollars were implemented, commercial loans in the amount of 721 million dollars were allocated. Including construction of the Shurtan gas-chemical complex ($622.2 million), Bukhara oil refinery ($59 million), compressor station at the Kokdumaloq field ($76 million), reconstruction of the Fergana oil refinery (83 million) long-term loans were allocated [10].

Within the framework of the agreement between the Government of the Republic of Uzbekistan and the Japan International Cooperation Agency on the allocation of scholarships for personnel training, 345 students from Uzbekistan received training in Japan during 2000-2019. It is planned to double this number in 2024-2025 [17, C. 59]. Japan has also allocated an emergency aid loan of ¥15 billion to Uzbekistan to fight against the COVID-19 crisis [16, C. 12]. In addition, Japan contributes to the preservation of the heritage of the Silk Road and provides assistance in strengthening the capacity to protect and preserve cultural values in Uzbekistan. In particular, the project "Preservation of Silk Road cultural heritage through digital archives" [7] developed for the purpose of archiving and preservation in digital format at the State Museum of the History of Uzbekistan and the Termiz Archaeological Museum in Tashkent is supported by the JICA organization. In 2022, grant assistance in the amount of 55.9 million yen (490 thousand US dollars) was provided to finance this project [6]. Before that, JICA conducted studies in the State Museum of History of Uzbekistan and Archaeological Museums of Termiz and archaeological sites near the city of Termiz on June 10-30, 2021, and the initial meetings within the project started in October.

Currently, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are provided with energy and mineral resources, but they are vulnerable to changes in world commodity prices. Therefore, they should reduce their dependence on natural resources. The Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan are not rich in energy resources. Remittances from Kyrgyz and Tajiks working in Russia and other countries make up about a third of each country's gross domestic product. All this shows the need to develop local industry and provide employment.

In addition, the Russia-Ukraine conflict has increased uncertainty about the future growth of the region's economies. Ensuring the self-confidence and stability of the countries in the region is important for the stability of the entire Eurasian continent. Based on these visions, JICA will strengthen governance, including the development of the legal system; industrial diversification, including promotion of private sector-led economic activity and promotion of small and medium entrepreneurship; prioritized infrastructure development, including the construction of airports and power plants to help strengthen international and interregional ties, and human resource development, including the Japan Human Development Centers, JICA scholarship programs. At the same time, JICA considers the promotion of cooperation between the countries of the region as an important aspect.

In fiscal year 2022, JICA signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) with KazAID, a new aid agency established by the Government of Kazakhstan. Within the framework of this memorandum, JICA cooperated with KazAID in conducting quality and efficiency improvement (KAIZEN) training for neighboring countries [1, C. 40]. KazAID (Kazakhstan Agency for International Development) was established by the decision of the Government of Kazakhstan on December 15, 2020 [13]. In order to diversify agriculture-related sectors and increase their export potential, JICA for Uzbekistan is investing in horticulture. provided two-stage loans aimed at strengthening the economy.

In addition, JICA has established JICA Chairs in selected universities of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan to expand the base of leaders to help develop long-term bilateral relations between each country and Japan.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Japan provides a large amount of foreign aid to support the process of economic development in Central Asian countries. In addition, the ODA program has served as a key vehicle for building bilateral relations and supporting Japan's foreign policy objectives in host countries. Despite the fact that Japan aims to achieve sustainable economic development in the countries of the region in its development policy, it uses different tactics based on the characteristics of the countries. The directions of the development policy of each region are determined taking into account the socio-economic situation in the respective countries and are mainly aimed at stimulating economic development, human resources development, capacity building and infrastructure development. Supporting local government empowerment projects implemented by Japan not only benefits the central government, but also increases the social development prospects of the population.