PROJECT
FINDING
Identification and selection of priority
projects are indispensable not only for achieving suc-cessful
agriculture and rural development in developing countries but also
for enhancing the sufficiency of such assistance.
Although
identification of such projects is, in principle, the task of
developing countries, the donor community needs to help them go
through the task by providing expertise and information, to the
extent best possible, on the basis of the request from developing
countries, which still face the problems of inadequate human
resources, expertise and financial resources.
The major
objective of the "ADCA project finding" is to facilitate the
agriculture and rural development cooperation for both the
Government of Japan and developing countries. Once a prospective
candidate project is identified through field work, ADCA mission
provides the result of its findings to the Government of the
developing country concerned and recommends the Government to take
initiative to consult with the Government of Japan for official
assistance.
Upon return the ADCA mission prepares an ADCA
project finding report for each identified project. ADCA submits the
report with the recommendation to the Government of Japan for review
and consideration of the possible official technical and/or
financial assistance, such as support by the Japan International
Cooperation Agency (JICA).
In this sense, the ADCA project
finding holds its significance as an essential part of the process
of development assistance provided by the Government of Japan.
Recognizing such role and importance of the ADCA project finding,
the Government of Japan decided in 1977 to partially finance this
activity. From 2011 ADCA has been carrying out project finding with
its own fund (Overseas Agriculture Development Research Fund). ADCA
has smoothly and successfully identified a large number of candidate
pro-jects in over 110 developing countries.
The chart shows
the process of the ADCA project finding:
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FEASIBILITY STUDY
Upon submission of ADCA project finding
reports, the government of a recipient country and Japan may hold
bilateral negotiation in accordance with the recommendations and
findings of the reports, and come to a conclusion to give priority
to projects identified by ADCA for implementation. Consequently an
official prelimi-nary survey is conducted by JICA as a JICA grant
aid program, based on the Exchange of Notes agreed upon between the
two governments.
In general, a feasibility study is conducted
to examine whether the target project will be carried out in phases,
regardless of the size of the pro-ject. It also determines the
necessity of formu-lating a master plan prior to a feasibility study
in case of request by the recipient government for a comprehensive
development plan or a long range development plan.
One of the
objectives of feasibility studies is to look into the viability of
the project in terms of technicality, socio-economy, financing,
insti-tutions and so on. Hence carrying out a feasibility study
requires a high level of expertise provided by a number of qualified
professionals, specialists and engineers which are in short in
developing countries. Another important objective of JICA-supported
feasibility study is that most of the field work as well as desk
work are jointly carried out by the staffs of the recipient
government and the members of the JICA study team based on the
on-the-job training program.
In case of agriculture and rural
development projects, the expertise made available for the
feasibility study and related work is retained solely by ADCA and
its members. ADCA members are able to dispatch a number of
well-experienced specialists and engineers in order to successfully
carry out studies on agricul-ture and rural development. It should
be noted that these specialists and engineers are familiar with JICA
schemes and procedures including the capacity building arrangement
for the recipient country.
After conducting a feasibility
study, its finding is reported to both the governments of Japan and
the recipient country. Concurrently, the project is incorporated
with high priority into a national plan of agriculture and rural
development of the recipient country. In case immediate
implementation of the project is needed, the report may turn into a
part of documents requesting for financial assistance from bilateral
or multilateral financing organizations, such as
JICA.
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