**2. Domestic policy contexts that determined the characteristics of Japanese cooperation for industrial human resource development**

Industrial human resource development assistance is the form of Japan's ODA that has the longest history. It began by accepting trainees, mainly in the agriculture, forestry, and fishery industries, requested by the Colombo Plan, the International Cooperation Administration (ICA) of the United States, and other international organizations. In the early days, such assistance was "passive"—not based on Japan's policy intentions. A turning point came in 1958 when Japan extended its first yen loans. Unlike earlier assistance, the yen loans were implemented in line with the Japanese government's economic cooperation policy [1]. Most ODA was provided in the form of yen loans tied to the export of machinery produced by Japanese enterprises to promote Japan's economic growth. In 1959, Japan introduced a new scheme of technical cooperation, the Overseas Technical Cooperation Center program, which enabled the dispatching of experts to other countries. The program's primary objective was to train mid- to low-skilled engineers2 in agricultural machinery, fishery, electronics, and telecommunications industries, which Japan was particularly interested in exporting. Another goal of the program was to cultivate engineers who were accustomed specifically to Japanese machinery and proficient in its operation, thereby ensuring that these engineers would choose Japanese products when they started working in factories [2].

After Japan became an official member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1964 amid rapid economic growth, the

<sup>1</sup> These include the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW).

<sup>2</sup> In this chapter, the term "engineer" is used to mean one who has acquired specialized skills, regardless of skill or degree level.

#### *Perspective Chapter: Japan's Government-Led and Private-Sector-Led Cooperation for Industrial... DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.112514*

Japanese government started paying more attention to its own global diplomatic status as an aid-providing country. This diplomatic and macroeconomic turn has triggered active discussions in Japan reassessing its previous economic cooperation, which was mainly driven by its own national interests. Such a reorientation of Japan's ODA programs is also a response to pressure from the international community to reform its aid programs by, for example, increasing the amount of assistance and relaxing assistance conditions. Two other factors were also influencing the Japanese government: in the 1970s, Japan was facing criticism from Southeast Asian countries that its economic cooperation was tied to its national interest, and international aid was trending away from emphasizing economic growth and toward reducing poverty in developing countries. Given these circumstances, in 1979, Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira announced that the concept of *hitozukuri* ("human resource development"), a Japanese traditional belief, would be adopted as its indigenous aid philosophy to effectively promote the economic development of developing countries. After the announcement, *hitozukuri* became one of the normative pillars of Japanese development assistance, and the amount of ODA for industrial human resource development projects gradually increased. In 1982, the Japanese government introduced ASEAN Hitozukuri (Human Resource Development) Cooperation and supported establishing Hitozukuri centers in ASEAN countries to foster TVET instructors, highly skilled engineers, and managers. The focus of human resource development in this period was training higher-level professionals who would contribute to the rapid economic development of their countries.

After the 1990s, assistance for basic rather than higher levels of education began to attract worldwide attention. In response to this trend, *hitozukuri* for high-skilled professionals in developing counties lost ground to an emphasis on the development of basic skills for the masses, including the poor, women, and other vulnerable groups in society. Japan's ODA White Paper 2001 mentions the promotion of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and capacity building for TVET institutions as part of industrial human resource development [3]. It also points out the importance of establishing a new TVET system for smooth technology transfer. But it does not focus on the development of professionals, which used to be one of the most essential concepts of *hitozukuri*. This is partly because ODA budgets have decreased every year since peaking in 1997, which made it challenging to construct TVET institutions or to dispatch large numbers of Japanese experts directly to support human resource development as in the past.

Another noteworthy aspect of the recent policy context of support for industrial human resource development is its regional diversification. Although the main beneficiaries have always been Asian countries, an interest in providing TVET assistance to African youth has grown since the fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD IV) in 2008 [4].

To summarize, the initial motivation for Japanese cooperation for industrial human resource development was to promote Japan's exports. But international criticism that such cooperation was driven by national interests, coupled with pressure to reform its aid, gradually turned the Japanese government toward fostering specialized engineers who could contribute to the economic growth of developing countries rather than just benefiting Japanese investors. In recent years, with declining ODA budgets, Japan has been promoting TVET system development rather than providing trainers and materials. We also see geographic diversification of the recipient countries from an exclusive focus on Asia to Africa and other regions.
