By Rachel Kakraba
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA Ghana), has launched the JICA Chair for Japanese Studies in Ghana.
The initiative, which will be spearheaded by Ghana’s premier university, the University of Ghana, Legon, will conduct short but intensive lectures, by lecturers from Japan.
It is to share Japan’s development cooperation experiences with future leaders of receiving nations and to provide a platform for Ghana and Japan to exchange experiences.
It will bring together policymakers, academia, business leaders, diplomatic corps, Civil Society Organization and alumni of Japanese universities to share ideas.
Chief Representative JICA, Araki Yasumichi, said the JICA Chair initiative will promote peace of the country.
“Japan has a very unique experience, so we have obligation to spread such experience with developing countries, and Ghana is one of our partner country.”
Mr. Yasumichi was hopeful of extending the gesture to other universities.
“If we get the request to spread this JICA chair, we will consider support for its implementation.”
He said Japan will support Ghanaian businesses to flourish, saying the two countries must identify other areas of collaboration.
“We would like to support the Ghanaian organisation for its long-term vision. It takes time and it takes tolerance, so both of them will have to collaborate for development, how to grow our organisations, and the vision. We would like to sing together for the future.”
Mr. Araki said scholarship abounds for Ghanaians in Japanese universities, such as Japanese Grant Aid-JDS for civil servants, ABE Initiative for young business personalities, among others, and challenged Ghanaians to take advantage of the opportunity for further studies.
“We have different targets, and we are trying to provide such variety of scholarship for the Ghanaian people.”
A beneficiary of Japan scholarships and the Director, Centre for Asian Studies, University of Ghana, Dr. Lloyd Adu Amoah, described the establishment of the JICA chair as historic, which will contribute significantly to human resource development of Ghana.
“This is historic; this is the first time Japan has supported any such undertaking at the University level, ever since Ghana and Japan entered into formal diplomatic ties, 66 years ago.”
He said it will consolidate the vision of the centre to be one of Africa’s leading centres of Asian studies.
“This JICA Chair comes at the judicious time as the Centre for Asian Study consolidates its vision to make the centre one of the best in Africa. As the centre builds its intellectual and physical infrastructure under this JICA Chair, CAS looks forward to train a new cadre of capable hands in the coming decade.”
Vice President of the International University of Japan, Prof. Hiroshi Kato, in his lecture, which focused on JICA’s policy towards Ghana and Africa, expressed his country’s support for the Ghana Beyond Aid Agenda.
He said Japan strives to minimize the negative impact of aid, such as overdependence on donor countries, which is usually associated with donor funding.
“If a country wants to move away from its dependence it’s to reduce or minimize the negative consequences of aid. Both donor and aid recipient countries cooperate so that aid will provide maximum benefit.”
Prof. Kato added, “Donors are responsible to also to minimize the negative consequences of foreign aid.”
He said, unlike other donor countries, Japanese aid is growth-oriented with focus on economy, infrastructure, and technical cooperation for institutional development, which is beneficial to receiving countries. He challenged donor and recipient countries to cooperate for better outcomes.
“There are three key principles of Japanese Foreign aid, first it is strongly growth oriented which is closely related to Japan’s strong efforts on infrastructure development and public-private partnership and extensive use of loans.”
“The second character, long term institution building and the third is to respect the law of the government.”
Japan’s Ambassador to Ghana, Mr. Mochizuki Hisanobu, was optimistic that Ghana Beyond Aid was achievable.
“Ghana has been pursuing the vision of the Ghana beyond aid and industrialization agenda by building human capacity and transforming people’s mind set. I’m confident Ghana will achieve this development agenda. I strongly hope, Japanese experiences could offer invaluable insights to the development of Ghana.”
The East Asian country, has over the years been instrumental in Ghana’s development, through the provision of grants, loans, and technical support, amongst others. Among Ghana’s development partners, Japan provides Ghana with low-interest loan facilities. Participants were taken through some Japanese cultural experiences such as calligraphy and origami, which is paper folding.
Some beneficiaries of Japanese scholarships shared their study experiences in Japan’s universities.
