Japanese investment in Africa is booming. It rose from $758 million in 2000 to $7.8 billion in 2017, the result of nearly 796 Japanese companies now present on the continent. As the world's third largest economy and second largest industrial power after China and the United States, Japan is also the fifth largest donor of bilateral aid to Africa. Despite its low profile and the competition from other foreign powers active on the continent, Japan remains a well regarded development partner in Africa, particularly for the non intrusive nature of its cooperation model, built around the idea of "African development by Africans." While the first commercial exchanges between the archipelago and the continent date back to the sixteenth century, it was only in the 1950s that Japan truly began to take an interest in Africa.

Development aid: a postwar Japanese vocation

Severely weakened at the end of the Second World War, Japan was occupied by the United States under General MacArthur's command, ostensibly for its "reconstruction." American troops withdrew after Japan signed the Treaty of San Francisco in 1951, under which it recognized Korea's independence, renounced Taiwan and its Pacific island territories (which passed under American trusteeship), and gave up the Kuril Islands and Sakhalin, which became Soviet territory. The Japanese archipelago renounced any external military intervention and was authorized only to maintain a non nuclear "self defense force."

A new chapter opened in 1954 when Japan joined the Colombo Plan for cooperative economic and social development in Asia and the Pacific, an initiative launched by Commonwealth member states aimed at cooperative economic development to raise living standards across parts of Asia, partly to counter the perceived threat of communism. Also supported in the early 1960s by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund through loan based funding, Japan aimed to develop its national infrastructure and revive its industry, in line with the Yoshida Doctrine.

It was in 1960 that Japan experienced the rise of an "economic miracle," driven by the growth of its automobile industry and technical and technological innovation. Yet because 80% of its land is unsuitable for cultivation, Japan continued to need natural resources, resources available on the African continent. Mindful of its past and driven by ambitions to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Japan rapidly expanded its Official Development Assistance (ODA). This term refers to resources provided to countries and territories on the OECD's list of ODA recipients. Beyond its aim of supporting postwar reconstruction, economic development, and improved living standards in developing countries, Japan's ODA also served to project soft power across as many African states as possible, in the hope of securing the support needed to obtain permanent Security Council membership.

The two key instruments of Japanese ODA are the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). Together they give practical form to the philosophy underpinning Japan's development approach: self help, which incorporates two core principles set out by the OECD's Development Assistance Committee for more effective aid delivery in the Paris Declaration and the Busan Declaration, namely ownership and partnership, in service of African development driven by Africans themselves.

Japan's self help strategy at the heart of its cooperation

Self help is one of the founding concepts of Japan's official development assistance philosophy. It consists of supporting developing countries in taking ownership of their own development potential, by promoting good governance, cooperation focused on human resource development, institution building, legal system development, and the construction of economic and social infrastructure, among other areas.

Official development assistance in Africa

Japan's Official Development Assistance has gone through several phases shaped by the international geopolitical context, from postwar reconstruction to a genuine aid diplomacy, passing through the two oil crises. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet bloc created a geopolitical context favorable to Japan: a largely overlooked Africa combined with Japan's enormous need for natural resources, particularly energy resources, contributed to the creation of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in 1993, the first forum ever held between a single country and an entire continent. This initiative allowed Japan to position itself as a pioneer of a new model of international cooperation. Japan was, in fact, the only Asian power capable of financing development programs across the region, including in China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, India, Egypt, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and even Turkey, before extending its reach to Africa, notably through visits by Japanese foreign ministers to Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, and Côte d'Ivoire, making Japan the world's leading donor from 1991 to 2001.

Japanese official aid allowed Tokyo to shape its international image as a preferred development partner for African states. In 2016, Japan's bilateral official aid amounted to $7,016.09 million, compared with $3,315.33 million in contributions and financing to international organizations, placing Japan fourth among OECD Development Assistance Committee member states, behind the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom. While Japanese ODA directed to the African continent represented only 2.2% of total Japanese ODA in 1970, by 2016 it accounted for nearly 30% of grants, 15% of cooperation funding, and 4% of concessional loans. To manage its economic cooperation more effectively, Japan created the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in 1974, bringing together bodies working across various areas of development, including technical cooperation covering human resources, research and development, immigration, and agricultural cooperation. JICA's role is to ensure the proper implementation of Japan's ODA worldwide, with offices in more than 150 countries. As the pillar of Japan's economic cooperation, ODA is divided into two components:

Bilateral aid: Implemented by the Japan International Cooperation Agency, it covers funding for technical cooperation, financing and investment cooperation, and grants, with JICA overseeing the execution of bilateral aid.

Multilateral aid: This covers funding and contributions provided to international organizations.

TICAD: designing tomorrow's Africa

The second pillar of Japan's ODA in Africa is the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), which brings African countries together to think through the future of the continent, taking into account the challenges it faces, including food insecurity, migration, and unemployment. TICAD also brings together international organizations, partner countries engaged in triangular cooperation, private companies, and non governmental organizations. Alongside the concept of self help, TICAD's philosophy rests on two central principles: ownership and partnership.

• Ownership: the principle by which African led efforts for African development are autonomous and self reliant.

• Partnership: the principle referring to international development assistance put in place to address specific challenges.

Official Development Assistance, delivered through TICAD and JICA, is guided by a shared vision: developing Africa through Africa itself.

Passing on a legacy as an approach

Distinguishing itself through a non intrusive cooperation policy, unlike some of the continent's other partner countries, Japan is an actor that emphasizes development achieved through the transmission of a legacy, one it once acquired during its own postwar reconstruction, namely its industrial, technological, and agricultural expertise, contributing to a distinctly Japanese approach to development based on "quality over quantity." Following the sixth edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development in 2016, Japan committed to training more than 30,000 young Africans across various sectors, notably agriculture and technology, in order to build a workforce capable of addressing the major challenges facing African states, including water sanitation, the fight against famine, and the development of electricity networks.

The industrial sector

As one example, the Japanese company Daikin trained specialized technicians from the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the installation and maintenance of air conditioning equipment, while Polyglu trained and employed 3,000 people in wastewater treatment. Hideyo Noguchi, the Japanese pioneer of bacteriological research, employs 49 researchers from Ghana and other West African countries, with the ambition of establishing a molecular laboratory in Africa, run by Africans, dedicated to detecting infectious diseases. Another sector expanding rapidly on the continent is the automotive industry. Toyota, the world's third largest automaker, has chosen to establish itself in Côte d'Ivoire, following earlier moves into South Africa, Egypt, Nigeria, and Ghana.

Agriculture

This cooperation has also fed other ambitions, expressed at the seventh edition of TICAD through the goal of feeding Africa by Africa: "rice diplomacy." Through this program, launched by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Sasakawa Africa Association, Japan aims to double rice production in Africa to reach 50 million tonnes by 2030. In addition, Sakata, the Japanese global leader in vegetable and flower seeds, has stated that development cannot rely solely on purely economic investment but must be driven primarily by agricultural development, which reduces dependency. The Sakata group has established cooperatives in South Africa and plans to expand its activities across the continent.

Toward defense oriented cooperation: an ambition signed by Shinzo Abe?

To combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden and protect its own merchant vessels, Japan built a military base in Djibouti in 2010. Operational since 2011, the facility houses around 200 members of Japan's Self Defense Forces. Seeking to move beyond the image of a weakened but non aggressive Japan, the Cabinet decided to shift its defense posture, a difficult legacy of the postwar period, by amending certain provisions of Article 9 of the Constitution, which states that Japan "sincerely aspires to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized."

Adopted under American occupation, these provisions reflected the aspirations of Japanese authorities at the time for a non interventionist Japan. Article 9 makes no explicit provision for self defense. To address this gap, a law passed in 2015 and adopted in 2016 affirmed the need to permit the use of weapons in cases of self defense, while maintaining a commitment to preserving international peace and security. On this basis, in 2016 and 2017, Japan deployed forces to South Sudan in support of United Nations contingents.

In the same vein, Japan set out in its 2019 Defense White Paper its intention to participate in the United Nations' rapid deployment capability project in Africa, within the framework of triangular partnerships. As one example, in 2016 Japanese officers were sent to serve as instructors at peacekeeping training centers in South Sudan, Kenya, and the Sinai, and as instructors for the African Rapid Deployment of Engineering Capabilities Project (ARDEC).