By Taro Fujimoto

Lifestyle Sep. 15, 2008 - 06:01AM JST ( 8 )

TOKYO —

After World War II, Japan devoted its resources to economic development. But having achieved economic prosperity, Japan has also been criticized over the years for its introspective stance toward international issues. Under the circumstances, Japanese non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are strengthening their presence worldwide.

One of the leading international NGOs operating worldwide for emergency aid and post-conflict development is Peace Winds Japan (PWJ). Founded in 1996, PWJ has been dispatching Japanese aid workers and hiring local staff to hot spots around the world. It currently has offices in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan and Myanmar. PWJ also helps in Japan when a natural disaster occurs.

“People in the world expect Japan to offer something different from Western countries,” says Tetsuya Myojo, chief executive officer of PWJ. “Many expect a greater technological aspect to aid from Japan.”

While expectations toward Japan are positive abroad, Myojo points out that Japanese people still don’t have enough knowledge about what NGOs like PWJ do outside Japan. Rather, they often have stereotyped images of NGOs, lumping them together with aggressive anti-whaling groups or anti-globalism movements.

Earlier this year, when the Foreign Ministry regulated the number of NGO observers at the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, it was like a return to the bad old days of 2002 when PWJ was caught up in a political dispute between then Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka and Diet member Muneo Suzuki in 2002 (though, ironically, the scandal did boost awareness of PWJ nationwide).

The scandal broke out just after PWJ founder Kensuke Onishi told the Asahi newspaper that Suzuki had pressured the foreign ministry to regulate NGOs’ participation in an international conference on the development of Afghanistan that was being held in Tokyo. Onishi was invited to the Diet to give testimony on the scandal, which eventually forced Tanaka to resign and Suzuki to leave the Liberal Democratic Party.

Myojo says PWJ wasn’t impacted too much by the affair. Rather, he said that people have already forgotten it and that an increasing number of politicians often contact PWJ, seeking detailed information on its projects. “It created an opportunity to make people think of the importance of NGOs.”

One of the biggest issues facing Japanese NGOs is fund-raising. Myojo explains: “The majority of our funds come from the government and the United Nations.” However, he also points out there is limited financial support for large-scale operations. “Japanese NGOs suffer financially as their projects become larger because the government doesn’t provide full budget support.”

Private companies are becoming more aware of the importance of NGOs in terms of their corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, Myojo says. “They contact us offering their collaboration. Many of them often say, ‘What can we do for you?’ because they don’t know what to do with NGOs.”

One noticeable trend among Japanese NGOs is the high number of women aid workers. “I guess salaries for aid workers at Japanese NGOs are still not enough to take care of families, although it’s getting better than used to be,” says Myojo. “The gap between ideals and the reality is significant.”

Another unique factor is that most Japanese aid workers are educated in the United States and United Kingdom, obtaining masters’ degrees in related areas of study. 

So what are the future prospects for Japanese NGOs? Myojo says they have to be more capable of implementing large scale operations because the majority of them are still small organizations. He says, “Some large-scale Western NGOs are capable of even negotiating with governments and international organizations for advocacy purposes, which Japanese NGOs cannot do. They don’t have such visible leadership.”

Myojo believes the strength of Japanese NGOs is that they are seen as neutral. “And the quality of their projects is not bad since Japanese aid workers buckle down and get to work once they start a project,” he says.