Jijodoryoku: The Spirit of Self-Help in Development Cooperation

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.