Japan – Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA)
MULTIPLE AGENCY GROUP : JapanThe Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) is responsible for setting Japan’s foreign and development policy and holds jurisdiction over the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). Japan is an influential player in global development as a member of the G7, the G20, and the joint largest shareholder in the Asian Development Bank. Japan is not an IATI member and Japan-MOFA does not publish IATI data.
Japan-MOFA remains in the ‘very poor’ category. It is not publishing to the IATI Registry and thus none of its data is available in a comparable format.
Information is consistently published for only eight indicators, for 10 indicators some information is available and no information at all is available for 16 indicators.
Japan-MOFA scores on half of the indicators for the organisational planning and commitments components. A current annual report and a procurement policy are published on their website and country strategies, audits and allocation policies are made available but were not up to date. No organisation strategy is provided on Japan-MOFA’s website.
No financial and budgetary information is available but for commitments. Nor is a forward-looking total organisation budget and disaggregated budgets being published.
Japan-MOFA does not score on any of the project attributes indicators but titles and descriptions.
For the joining-up development data component, Japan-MOFA provides information about finance type and flow type consistently. Information about the aid type and tied aid status can be found for some projects. No information at all is published for conditions nor are contracts and tenders being published.
Apart from objectives, no information is being made available for any of the other performance related indicators. Reviews and evaluations are sometimes published.
- Japan-MOFA should start publishing to the IATI Registry to provide aid information on its projects that is timely, comprehensive and forward-looking.
- Japan-MOFA should work with its counterparts in JICA and other Japanese aid providers to ensure that Japan’s publication provides a full picture of all development cooperation activities.
- To demonstrate the impact of transparency on development work, Japan-JICA should take responsibility to promote the use of the data they publish: internally, to promote coordination and effectiveness; and externally, to explore online and in-person feedback loops, including at country-level.