FORUM (Spotlight Weekly)

An Enduring Symbol of Nepal-Japan Cooperation

By SHAMBHU RANA

The Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) was founded in 1965 as an agency under the auspices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan, for the purpose of providing official technical assistance to developing countries. Since then, JOCV has despatched over 20,000 volunteers on two-year assignment to 61 countries in Asia, Africa, Middle East, Latin America, Oceania and Eastern Europe. From 1974, the JOCV secretariat has been integrated into the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

In 1970, the JOCV office was established in Nepal. The Japanese government despatched volunteers for the purpose of contributing to the social and economic development of Nepal. Since then, more than 700 young Japanese have shared their skills, expertise and technical know-how in different key development sectors of the country.

From its establishment, the JOCV has played a pro-active role as a strategic and reliable partner in Nepal's socio-economic development process, which is underlined by the increasing demand of Japanese volunteers each year. The increasing goodwill and popularity of JOCV volunteers can be attributed to their capability to adjust and work sincerely in the remote areas by sharing the problems of the villages and helping to fulfil their needs.

The JOCV is involved in agriculture, forestry, health services, education, community development, drinking water, transport, telecommunication, civil engineering, sports, manufacturing and other sectors. The first batch of agriculture volunteers assigned to the then Rapti Agriculture Model Farm, Bharatpur, in Chitwan district, undertook intensive research into the types of vegetables appropriate to the climatic condition of the district.

The positive result led them to encourage farmers to cultivate vegetables on a commercial scale. Since then, many volunteers have been engaged in such fields as fruit orchard, livestock, food crops, seed plantations in the country's vital agriculture sector. They have helped to motivate farmers to use modern tools, techniques and the 'learning by doing' method.

Altogether 226 volunteers have shared their professional and technical knowledge with the Nepali people in the agriculture sector alone. Their dedication, dynamism and performance are lauded by Nepalis at all levels. The JOCV has been supporting Nepal's development efforts with its highly motivated and skilled human resources. The volunteers have been playing a vital role in Nepal's economic development at the grass-roots level in different parts of the country. 1999 marked the 25th anniversary of the founding of JICA. It also marked the start of a newly constituted JICA with the most extensive organizational reforms and modern programs ever implemented in the agency.

JOCV official development assistance has increased both quantitatively and qualitatively to new levels in the key sectors of Nepal's economy. Japan is the world's largest donor nation and its contributions to this country have been evaluated highly.

As the central agency providing and managing aid programs, JICA is contributing to the human development of Nepal, especially by despatching experts. It has hosted technical training in Japan, thereby promoting a participatory approach to development cooperation.

The history of Japan's own economic development serves as a model for nation-building for developing countries. From this perspective, JICA/JOCV have played a very important role in transmitting this Japanese model to Nepal.

Japanese Alumni Association of Nepal (JAAN) has been implementing programs with the active participation of our members to enable a more participatory promotion program with greater collaboration with JICA's new implementation system. Cooperation from these agencies is important while promoting programs. Regular meetings and contacts are held with the heads of JICA/JOCV and other agencies in joint programs to observe the volunteers' activities. These activities serve to enhance an understanding of the volunteer program and to strengthen a cooperative relationship with JICA.

Members give important pre-despatch training orientation to Nepali participants going to Japan for training programs. Emphasizing the importance of studying from actual experience, these activities provide plenty of opportunities for learning. Over the years, trainees have gained a lot of knowledge, technical expertise and experience. With this expertise, it is hoped that JAAN members would help JICA to find new programs by working in a positive spirit of partnership that would help the overall development of Nepal.

Such collaboration would be of great importance to promote the activities of JAAN through new ideas and to enlarge members' participation to implement attractive programs that can make a positive contribution to the country, and to help increase the membership network. It would indeed be a matter of great satisfaction for us if such efforts could give further boost to the friendly relations between Nepal and Japan.

The writer is the executive member of JAAN