This paper aims to conduct a preliminary analysis of the expected effects of a transport infrastructure project on firms’ locational choice and business environment in Mozambique, using a baseline firm survey. We compare firms’ locational choice factors and their perceptions of the business...

This paper discusses policy issues pertaining to infrastructure development in low income countries (LICs) in Asia. Infrastructure challenges in Asian LICs have not been adequately highlighted to date mainly because the international focus has often been on African LICs and because large...

While social capital in general has been recognized as essential for economic activities, its accumulation mechanisms are largely unexplored. How does people’s trust toward others, one of the core dimensions of social capital, emerge? To shed new light on this largely unanswered question, we...

This paper reviews the experiences of the government of Japan to incorporate the human security concept as one of basic principles of its ODA policy, and JICA’s activities to operationalize the human security principle. It then examines the challenges and problems JICA has faced in its...

The history of Japan’s official development assistance can be divided into four distinct periods in which objectives have diversified and institutional arrangements have evolved. However, these objectives ranging, from Japan’s own economic development, poverty reduction, the promotion of...

Social capital is thought to have both positive and negative aspects. This paper examines how social capital has worked in the process of recovery and reconstruction in Kobe since the Great Hanshin Awaji Earthquake. The paper focuses on the tertiary sector of Kobe because since the earthquake...

Despite extensive policy discussion, limited empirical literature is available concerning the impacts of infrastructure on human development. Furthermore, major infrastructure services, such as transport and energy, are missing in the current Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) framework;...

This paper examines the political origins of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) through the lens of two research questions: (1) Why did the Japanese government undertake the JOCV project in 1965? and (2) Why did the project pursue multifaceted objectives –technical assistance,...

More than two-thirds of the total population of people with disabilities live in low and middle income countries and are one of the poorest and most marginalized groups in society. However, due to the dearth of data, research on disabilities and poverty is rare. With this paper, we intend to...

This paper sheds light on a potential risk of trade-off between access to primary education and the quality of education in underserved areas in the case of Yemen, which still faces challenges in access, equity, and quality in spite of its rapid improvement over the past decade. It will first...