This time, we spoke not with a company but with Masayuki Eguchi, director of the JICA (Japan International Cooperation Agency) Brazil Office, a government organization.

Since 1959, the organization has been maintaining and strengthening the partnership between Japan and Brazil by utilizing the knowledge, know-how, and human resources cultivated through Japan's Official Development Assistance (ODA) projects, with three pillars: cooperation between the Brazilian government, the private sector, and the Japanese community.

Leveraging bilateral cooperation between Japan and Brazil to solve global issues

JICA began Japan's overseas technical cooperation in 1954. After World War II, diplomatic relations between Japan and Brazil were resumed in 1952, and the first technical cooperation (dispatch of experts in the field of agriculture and irrigation) was carried out in Brazil in 1959. JICA has provided assistance totaling over 500 billion yen to date, working on a wide range of technical and financial cooperation, both large and small, in areas including national resource development projects, transportation, agriculture, environmental conservation, health and medical care, public safety, water supply and sewerage, and disaster prevention.

The most representative example of cooperation for Brazilian national projects is the "Cerrado (savannah region) farmland development." Through financial cooperation via the Brazilian government and other organizations and technical cooperation in partnership with EMBRAPA (the Brazilian Agriculture and Livestock Company), production volume was increased by 500% and productivity was improved by 300% on 345,000 hectares of farmland in the Cerrado region, laying the foundation for Brazil to become the world's largest soybean producer today.

In addition, in order to address the issue of improving public safety in Brazil, the state of São Paulo introduced community policing in the 1990s through interaction with citizens and building trust, and technical cooperation based on Japan's police box system was implemented for approximately 15 years.

As a result, since the start of Japan's cooperation, the murder rate in the state of São Paulo has decreased from approximately 34 per 100,000 people in 2000 to approximately 7 per 100,000 people in 2018. In April 2019, regional police national guidelines were established at the federal level, and activities are spreading nationwide.

Infectious diseases are an old and new threat to humanity. In a four-year technical cooperation program beginning in the 1980s, Brazil aimed to produce vaccines domestically, and has achieved domestic production of all measles and polio vaccines. For infectious disease control, we have been supporting joint research and technical cooperation with universities and research institutes in both countries since before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Technical cooperation provided to Brazil will be extended to third countries

In recent years, natural disasters caused by climate change have become more frequent. JICA is placing emphasis on forest conservation measures and renewable energy projects as projects that contribute to the "mitigation" of climate change.

To combat illegal logging in the Amazon rainforest, JICA is working with IBAMA (Brazil's Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) to use satellite images from Japan's JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) to monitor the state of deforestation beneath the clouds that cover the Amazon, as well as to use artificial intelligence (AI) to predict and detect illegal logging.

Other projects include supporting sustainable agricultural development agroforestry in the Japanese settlement of Tomé-açu in the state of Pará, providing loans for solar power generation projects, and collaborating with SENAI, which is responsible for industrial development research and human resource development in Brazil, to develop green hydrogen.

Meanwhile, Japan has strengths in its knowledge and experience in the field of disaster prevention as a measure to "adapt" to the effects of climate change (heavy rain, drought, flooding, landslides, etc.) Flooding of the Tiete River during the rainy season used to paralyze the economic and social functions of the São Paulo metropolitan area, but thanks to the development of flood control infrastructure supported by yen loans over a period of about 10 years since the 1990s, the Tiete River no longer floods.

Currently, in order to combat the frequent landslides occurring around the country, Japan is dispatching long-term experts to provide technical cooperation in areas such as disaster prevention policies and structural measures.

In recent years, Brazil has not only been a beneficiary of cooperation from Japan, but has also been transforming into a collaborative partner that expands the results of bilateral cooperation to other regions, such as Latin America and Africa. Known as "South-South Cooperation" or "Triangular Cooperation," projects include regional police projects in Central American countries and health care and industrial human resource development in Portuguese-speaking African countries such as Angola and Mozambique. Based on a long and wide-ranging track record of cooperation and trust with Brazil, Japan can work together with Brazil to tackle global issues such as food security, climate change measures, and infectious diseases.

Private sector collaboration and civil society participatory cooperation

In addition to cooperation with governments and government-affiliated organizations, JICA also places emphasis on cooperation projects led by the private sector, universities, NGOs, and local governments as an effective approach to solving problems in developing countries.

The Brazilian government places importance on private sector initiatives, and the private sector is in fact playing a major role in Brazil's economic and social development. JICA provides support through investment and loans (overseas investment and loans) to private entities in areas such as agriculture, health care, electricity, environmental conservation, and support for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Currently, Brazil is one of the countries with the largest number of JICA overseas investment loans approved in the world, and support through investment and loans to the private sector will likely continue to be one of the main pillars of JICA's work in Brazil.

In addition, the technologies possessed by small and medium-sized enterprises across Japan are also effective in solving various issues in Brazil, and we are supporting research and demonstration projects aimed at commercializing such technologies in Brazil, including crime prevention, disaster prevention, infrastructure reinforcement and repair, carbon storage measurement, waste treatment and recycling, and elderly care.

In recent years, JICA has introduced a support scheme that includes consulting services to explore the possibility of Japanese startups expanding into Brazil. In the support process, the trust and network that JICA has cultivated with government agencies is also being utilized.

Examples of citizen participation projects include grassroots technical cooperation projects. For example, a project aimed at improving the environmental education teaching skills of elementary school teachers was carried out between Shimane Prefecture and the city of Casapava in the Sao Paulo region. Environmental education methods and teaching materials were developed primarily by JICA trainees who returned from Japan, and an environmental education program was enacted as a city ordinance in 2022.

Along with the evolving Japanese community in Brazil

The Japanese community in Brazil is expanding in size and becoming more deeply entrenched, respecting and preserving Japanese traditions and values, while at the same time creating new value as the next generation emerges and integrates with non-Japanese communities. The relationship between JICA and the Japanese community in Brazil, which began with support for postwar relocation projects, is also changing with the times.

In the future, it is expected that the colony-style activities will change from one that is centered on Japanese and Japanese-descended people to one that is more open to non-Japanese communities. JICA will take into account the changes and needs surrounding the Japanese-descended community, and will incorporate pop culture (anime song dance, manga, cosplay) and business-related occupations into its volunteer dispatch program in addition to the traditional occupations.

As has been the case with past collaboration projects with the Japanese community (training visits to Japan, grant-making projects, and volunteer dispatches), JICA's collaboration projects with the Japanese community are not only contributing to the sustainability and development of the Japanese community, but are also leading to the development of Brazilian society as a whole.

Director Eguchi says, "The greatest strength supporting relations between Japan and Brazil is the presence of 2 million Japanese people, the largest number outside of Japan. Rather than taking the benefits of this for granted, exploring and developing ways to build a mutually beneficial relationship between Japan and the Japanese community (and the Brazilian community in Japan), will ultimately be the key to solidifying Japan-Brazil relations."

Supporting and collaborating with the growing presence of the Japanese Brazilian community in Japan is also seen as an important issue for the development of Japan-Brazil relations and Japanese society. JICA's Japanese Supporter Training, which was launched during the COVID-19 pandemic to support the Brazilian community in Japan, has so far seen a total of 16 Japanese Brazilians playing an active role in various parts of Japan.

*This article is reprinted from the Brazil Nippo (January 20, 2024).

© 2024 Tomoko Oura