The
publication of this book has been a major concern of mine for many years.
Prompted by thoughtful suggestions from those whom I know in aid organizations, I have been
thinking about sorting out the way of thinking about regional development
and its methodology, reflecting on actual cases. For the past 15
years or so, I have been fortunate as a development consultant to be able
to take charge of several large-scale regional development planning
projects almost continuously, and thus have accumulated cases. On
the other hand, I have been too busy to start writing this book.
Meanwhile, the way people think
about development has greatly expanded. This, of course, has
affected the way people view and do regional development. The greatest
change I see is that the regional development view and approach has
practically become the mainstream, at least in development cooperation
toward developing countries, and that the participatory planning has come
to be seen as important in regional development planning. However,
it is doubtful if these are recognized widely even among those who are
involved in development cooperation.
I would like, once again, to
organize my thought on why it is regional development now and why it will
be more and more of it in the future [. . .]. First, [. . .] it is
becoming increasingly important, amidst the proliferation of market and
open economy at the global level, to consider how regional development can
be planned through establishing comparative advantage over neighboring
countries while also using the relationship with them. This is,
in other words, a macro issue. On the other hand, the fundamental
objective of regional development to achieve the management and utilization
of the local resources by the local people and to meet the basic needs of
the local people, focusing on the socially disadvantaged, remains the same. This can be thought of as a micro
issue.
The globalization of market
and open economy might as well lead to a world of only a few
"haves" and the rest "have-nots". Under this
condition, neither the establishment of comparative advantage nor the
self-sustenance of the region can be reached simply by trying to fulfill
the basic needs abiding by the conventional method of regional development.
As values on development diversify, the question now is, how the
self-sustenance and regional integration can be achieved in accordance
with both the micro and macro issues mentioned above.
For this, two directions may be indicated in
terms of ODA and broader social development. First, as for the ODA
aspect, "the regional development approach is necessary to augment
the effects of assistance if it is targeted mainly at people."
In terms of social development, there would arise the global paradox that
"the more the world becomes globalized, the more important the
individual (person) becomes." |
The
fundamental objective (micro) of regional development is to respond to the
basic needs of people as individuals, especially those who are considered
to be the socially disadvantaged. However, in face of the increasingly
borderless world economy, to simply pursue regional development in the
conventional, standard way means nothing short of leaving those people
behind as losers, defying its purpose to start with. It is important
that, with the
local communities to which they belong as leverage, they expand their
activities for the improvement of livelihood for the basic needs to competitive economic activities,
and that the self-sustainable
development of the region be pursued by such expansion. To
pursue human development through local communities is to heighten the
effectiveness of ODA, and this is the core of the regional development
approach. The region is where
global trends come in spatial contact with people as individuals, and the
regional development is where the globalization confronts the human
dignity (of individuals) most pointedly. The borderless world must
not be the place where human as individuals is drowned in the global flows
of information, people and things. It must be established as the
space where direct links and exchange between people are the basis for
everything from culture to diplomacy, and where people as individuals
live. The advancement of information technology should be utilized
for that. The local community exists as a middle point where global
trends are interpreted locally to be conveyed to its people, and what
would link human development globally via these middle points is the
regional development for tomorrow. It
is essential that the planning approach designed to substantiate a concept
like this must find the optimal combination of top-down and bottom-up
approach. To formulate macro projects taking into consideration the
impact on the grassroots level, and to design participatory
projects that would lead to participation in more advanced regions as
well as higher human and social development are among the
most difficult challenges that the regional development planning will
face in the future.
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