Prospect of Development Assistance: Japan’s Opinion Poll and Burden Sharing

The time-series data of national opinion poll shows increasing support for economic cooperation since 2005. However, the general account budget for official development assistance has been continuously decreased. It is now below half of its peak in 1997. Although Japan’s public debt has amounted to over 200% of GDP, the ODA budget cut cannot be justified. The ODA budget is just less than 1% of GDP and its cut has little impact on debt reduction in any OECD countries, which are also suffering public debt. The general account budget on ODA in Japan is now only 0.12%. The budget cut also damages Japan’s diplomatic vision of “A Nation Striving for Peace”. Japan is supposed to allocate more budget for international peaceful development in the balance of military expenditure.