An Overview of the Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Regarding The Adverse Effects Considered in Its Revisions
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บทคัดย่อ
If the adverse impacts bought by the development projects could be reversed to “all great historic facts”, the tragedy is in whose hands and the farce is in whose interests? And which “personages” can be interpreted as “tragedy” or as “farce” in the history of the development? This paper aims to look over the history of the Japanese development assistant projects by focusing on the important accidents as tragedy and the important changes as “farce”. In January 2022, the implementing agency of Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) called JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) revised its Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations. The Guidelines aim to avoid or minimize the adverse environmental and social impacts caused by JICA-assisted projects in developing countries. Though JICA’s Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations were highly evaluated and JICA received the Institutional Award from the International Association for Impact Assessment in 2019 (JICA, 2019a), and the positive reputation from the international academic society for its Guidelines continues, it has also faced harsh criticism for its negative consequences. This paper examines the chronological changes in the Guidelines for Environmental and Social Considerations of JICA from JICA’s establishment to the latest reforms. The Japanese government has changed its policies on environmental and social impacts of international development projects several times, as Project Affected Peoples (PAPs) and civil society have brought attention to resultant adverse effects. This paper shows each reform’s features and their outcomes.
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