The Future of Foreign Aid

On October 15, 2008, Brookings hosted Sadako Ogata, President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), for a briefing on the topic of foreign aid effectiveness and the future of aid. Ogata served as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees from 1991 through 2000. From 2001 to 2003, she served as the Special Representative to the Prime Minister of Japan on Afghanistan Reconstruction. This year, Ogata led a merger between JICA and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), which created one of the world’s largest bilateral aid donors with financial resources of one trillion yen ($10 billion) and housed technical, grant and loan assistance together for the first time. She described that this move followed her motto of the “three S’s: scale up our operation, speed up the operation and spread out the operation results.” The test, Ogata noted, is how to effectively use the merged financial, technical and intellectual resources. 

Transcript excerpts:

Johannes Linn, Director, Wolfensohn Center for Development

“Scale Up, Speed Up, Spread Out…[Ogata’s] motto for Aid.”

Sadako Ogata, President, Japan International Cooperation Agency

“The test is really on how to use resources, not only financial but the expertise resources and technical assistance, grant aid and soft loans.”

Homi Kharas, Senior Fellow

“In the development community there is a great deal of discussion about how we can coordinate our efforts a little better amongst the myriad agencies, both public and private agencies within countries—all of whom are trying to provide development assistance.”