Assistance from Japan in Water Sector

News from the Field
April 22, 2009
More Than $5 Billion Assistance Pledged In Aid To Pakistan. Detailed Planning Begins.

A national drainage program to make more efficient use of water resources
Detailed financial and field planning is now underway after Japan pledged $1 billion in assistance to Pakistan at a donors conference held in Tokyo April 17. In all, more than 20 countries offered an estimated $5.3 billion of development assistance in such areas as agriculture, infrastructure and industry.

The funding will cover a two year period beginning later in 2009.

The conference, which was co-hosted by Japan and the World Bank, was called in recognition of the fact that while Pakistan faced increased military pressures along its borders with Afghanistan and internal turmoil, it also urgently needed to tackle domestic economic and social issues.

Overseeing Aid
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will oversee the bulk of Japan’s new contribution. Since its reorganization in October, 2008, the agency has handled not only technical assistance, but also Japanese ODA loans and some grant aid in the more than 150 countries where it operates.

Officials said planning was currently underway to allocate resources in all three areas—Japanese ODA loans, grant aid and technical assistance. In 2007 JICA provided nearly $15 million in technical assistance and this was likely to double under the new schedule.

JICA has been active in both Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan for many years on a variety of projects and officials said priorities for the new assistance will including helping to strengthen Pakistan’s industries and expanding its agricultural base. Pakistan, for instance, is already the world’s fifth largest dairy producer and could expand both that industry and its meat industry. Specialist training for local officials, or human capacity development, will also be expanded including in such areas as agricultural extension work, economic advisors, investment and export promotion.

While Pakistan’s border and tribal areas remain extremely volatile, Japanese and other donors recognized the need, wherever possible, to bring essential services such as health and education to those regions. Japan, for instance, has already approved one initial study for the construction of a children’s hospital in the city of Peshawar.

JICA President Sadako Ogata, who is also a special envoy for Prime Minister Taro Aso on Afghanistan and Pakistan, said last week that a more closely coordinated regional approach is one way of tackling development difficulties in those two key countries.

Mrs. Ogata has a long association with the region, both for Japan and having served as the High Commissioner of the U.N. Refugee Agency, UNHCR, and last week she met with Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari to discuss development issues.

The JICA president noted JICA has already undertaken a series of highway construction projects in several central Asian countries through Japanese ODA loans and this network could eventually contribute to the development of the entire region.

Inside Pakistan itself, Japan has provided nearly $670 million in loans to upgrade most of the country’s major trunk road, the 1,200 kilometer Indus Highway, linking the port of Karachi to the northeast city of Peshawar and eventually surrounding states such as Afghanistan, China and central Asia, increasing the efficient movement of both trade and people.

Regional Cooperation

Cooperating on early warning system for natural disasters
“Closer regional activities could eventually bring closer political cooperation among neighbors,” she said. “We should look at the region as a whole to be able to exploit its full potential though there are serious security problems in several parts of the country.”

Since the terrorists’ attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, Pakistan has found itself in the frontlines in the so-called war on terror because of its long border with Afghanistan and close proximity to Taliban and Al Qaeda strongholds.

Though several million Afghan refugees returned to their country after the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001, 1.7 million remain in Pakistan, in addition to some 600,000 internally displaced persons—all of whom put an enormous added strain on the country’s fragile structures.

The country’s problems were not helped when an earthquake rocked northeast Pakistan on October 8, 2005 and the world watched in stunned fascination as one of the worst natural disasters in modern times unfolded.

Towns were leveled. Entire villages tumbled down mountaintops. Hundreds of thousands of persons were cutoff, often in deep snowdrifts reachable only by donkey or helicopter.

Japan, like other countries, rushed doctors, nurses, rescue teams and medical supplies to the spectacularly beautiful, but suddenly deadly region. Despite these efforts at least 75,000 persons were killed, tens of thousands were injured, 3.3 million became homeless and damage was estimated at $5 billion.

Huge Population Needs
The political, military and earthquake turmoil diverted attention from efforts to improve Pakistan’s basic infrastructure such as roads and bridges, improve its industrial base and such services as education, health and energy to meet the needs of 160 million people, already the world’s sixth largest population and predicted to increase to 260 million by 2035.

For 30 years Japan has been a major donor to the country. Since 1976 it has provided some $7 billion as Japanese ODA loans for 75 projects, $2.1 billion in grant aid and a further $400 million in technical assistance. Some 4,700 Pakistani officials have received training in Japan and 1,089 Japanese experts worked on projects in-country.

To meet both emergency needs and longer term help for reconstruction under a so-called ‘built back better’ initiative following the 2005 earthquake, Japan provided $208 million in assistance even as building work continues with the construction of scores of schools, hospitals in Battagram Northwest Frontier Province where Japanese emergency crews operated in 2005. JICA has also been working on a reconstruction plan for Muzaffarabad City, the major population center affected by the quake.

Pakistan has now embarked on efforts to both better anticipate and handle future natural disasters and JICA is helping to strengthen the National Disaster Management Authority and mitigate floods risks in the Rawalpindi area by improving the capacity of district and local communities to respond.

Blend of Programs

Japanese volunteer works with local patient
Other projects are a blend of programs to strengthen Pakistan’s basic infrastructure such as roads, electrical output and industrialization and grass roots projects in areas such as education, water and health to improve the ‘human security’ of local communities.

The construction of the nearly two-kilometer long Kohat tunnel under the towering mountain peaks of the northwest frontier, aided by a Japanese ODA loan of around $126 million, eliminated one of Pakistan’s major transport bottlenecks.

Karachi itself, the country’s major economic center, former capital and a veritable melting pot of more than 10 million people, is in need of a massive facelift both to provide its citizens with better facilities such as water and sewage and as Pakistan’s major entrepot, to jump start the economy. A blueprint has been prepared offering a long-term development vision for Karachi and mid-term plans have also been developed for the water, sewage and transport sectors.

Key Parts
Other key parts where JICA is helping is to strengthen the country’s industrial base through capacity development, streamlining industrial policies and expanding public-private partnerships; eliminating current and growing power shortages where Japan has provided nearly $2 billion as Japanese ODA loans for 17 projects; and improving the irrigation and agricultural sectors through rehabilitating rundown irrigation systems and improving management and technical training.

Underlining the urgency in dealing with economic decline and noting that the ongoing instability had already cost Pakistan an estimated $35 billion, one report to be presented to the April 17 conference said “agricultural and commercial activities have been disrupted, markets and businesses have closed, employment has dropped, prices have increased and production has declined. Moreover, foreign investment has decreased and exports have been affected.”

It also noted that the number of poor were again on the rise and that primary education enrolment in Pakistan was the lowest in the region, education expenditures remained far below needed levels and that rural girls continued to remain far behind in their education compared with boys.

As part of its commitment to ‘human security’, in addition to rehabilitating schools and health facilities in the wake of the Great Pakistan Earthquake, JICA is involved in other ongoing projects to raise the levels of both teaching and education curricula, strengthening an project aimed at the disabled and improving health service management.