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I attended last March a public Symposium organized by JICA (Japan's International
Cooperation Agency) on "Development Assistance with regard to the
Building of Social Infrastructures." Most of the over 400 participants
were from the business sector.
Japanese ODA has been under fire, because the development frames built
by it do not match the real needs of the people and they have destroyed
the basis of the lives of the people and the environment. As an answer
to those criticisms the content of the ODA will be revised to plan new
development strategies with Asian and African countries. The beautiful
catch phrase was, "Infrastructures that suit the wishes of the people.
According to Japanese Foreign Office figures, Japan started again in 1992
economic assistance to Vietnam and is, now, the largest donor to that country.
The whole Japanese economic assistance to Vietnam is 92.4 billion yen (2002).
Japan is also one of the largest capital investors.
This financial official assistance produces big chances in the life of
the people and it is important that the grass rooted private organizations
active in development work inside Vietnam take sides with the ordinary
Vietnamese people.
Mr. Ohno, one of the key members in the team to revise Japanese ODA towards
Vietnam, referred to a big new bridge built by Australian official assistance
over the Mekong River. He mentioned that Australia made a survey on the
relocation of the residents, as a result of the construction of the bridge
and used those materials in the textbooks of Australian schools. Nothing
similar has been done in Japan.
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Before the bridge was built, people gathered at the ferry entrance where
many shops and free vendors were selling their products to the many visitors
arriving by buses and cars. I often worried about all those people who
could survive for years thanks to the existence of the ferries. What will
happen to them once the bridge was built? I wish I could get hold of the
results of the survey made by Australia.
And again in our way to Cao Bang, we could observe that the road from Hanoi
was undergoing a big enlargement, especially in the mountain areas where
many ethnic groups are living. It will not be possible to do a survey on
how such road building affects the mountain people, but a friend living
in Hanoi suggested that we could ask the opinions of the doctors at the
Cao Bang provincial hospital.
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The number of motorbikes is always increasing at HCM City, what means that
large quantities of money are flowing there. Pollution is obvious as soon
as one leaves the alleys into the main streets. I like the dynamism of
the city but I could hardly live in HCM. Although many bike riders use
masks, pollution will affect people's health so much that the earnings
will be spent in medical bills. The government, concerned about the matter,
fixes special lanes for city buses, stops the registration of new bikes
or limits their production, but official policies do not seem to work.
During the rush hours, motorbikes enter the pedestrian sites to cross faster
the lights of the roads.
If official policies do not work, what about having peoples' committees
handle the issue?
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