Ōnā Shippu: A Vestige of Japan’s Ambition to Lead International Aid

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,” emphasizes the aspect of responsibility imposed on the recipient, compared with “ownership” used in the international aid community. In Japan, “ōnā shippu” is a loanword, which places less emphasis on the aspect of control by the recipient itself and is conscious of the power asymmetry between donor and recipient. This chapter argues that the Japanese-style “ōnā shippu” is a product created in conjunction with Japan’s ambition to enhance its presence as a major donor in the aid community since the 1990s. Instead of using direct translations of self-help and autonomy, values that Japan’s aid emphasizes, it adopted the English word ownership because it was instrumental for Japan to take an initiative in the international aid community at that time. Japan led the conceptualization and promotion of ownership as a top donor until the mid-1990s. However, after that, differences with other DAC donors became apparent when “ōnā shippu” failed to translate into “ownership”: a concept that is commonly understood and accepted internationally. As the Japanese government has lost the need to emphasize ownership, the Japanese-style “ōnā shippu” is becoming a fading vestige in the Japanese government’s development cooperation strategy, but its connotation still remains among the Japanese aid workers and researchers.