In the 1980s, Japan became a leading donor of bilateral foreign aid. In the 1990s, it has become the leading bilateral aid donor in the world. A great deal of attention has focused on the kind of aid policy Japan pursues and the impact of that aid both on foreign investment in Asia and Japan's relations with other donor countries. Japan's Foreign Aid to Thailand and the Philippines asks a number of questions: What do recipients of Japanese aid get out of the increasing levels of funding that country is contributing? Are the types of aid recipients receive from Japan the types of aid they actually want? How do recipients respond to Japan as an aid donor, especially in terms of increasing or decreasing the level of aid they receive from Japan? This book examines these questions in the cases of Thailand and the Philippines, two of the largest recipients of Japanese aid in Asia. It examines their development priorities and assesses the fit between those priorities and actual Japanese aid disbursements.
It also examines the ways in which projects are initiated and implemented and the difficulties the recipient planning agencies encounter in coordinating project requests and stated development priorities. The book concludes that recipient agencies both planning authorities and line agencies must accommodate the major features and policies of the Japanese aid programme, but in doing so manage to get most of their development priorities met.