Women empowerment is our priority – Japan agency chief

Briefly tell us about Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)? The JICA is the implementing agency for the official development assistance of the government of Japan. Our work is to assist and support the Nigerian government in achieving its development goals. By the year 2020 Nigeria will be standing among top 20 economies based on GDP […]

Briefly tell us about Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)?
The JICA is the implementing agency for the official development assistance of the government of Japan. Our work is to assist and support the Nigerian government in achieving its development goals. By the year 2020 Nigeria will be standing among top 20 economies based on GDP basis and has many challenges to contend with to achieve this plan. Our budget is very limited but we communicate with the government and try to assist in various ways.
JICA works in several sectors including power, water supply, education, health, agriculture and women empowerment. We work through the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) usually in the area of capacity building, technology transfer, infrastructure development and so on.
Do you take Nigerians to Japan for the capacity building or you bring the experts from Japan?
Both ways. We provide the expatriates to both Federal and state governments and also they accept the trainees to Japan or to any other country. About a hundred Nigerian personnel travel to Japan for training every year. Sometimes the trainings run into several months depending on the team and not only for government personnel, sometimes private. Many government officials have travelled to Japan for training. Quite a huge number of participants of the JICA training are working and contributing towards checking challenges in the country.
In what ways have JICA boosted the bilateral relationship between Nigeria and Japan?
JICA has boosted the bilateral relationship between Nigeria and Japan in many ways. This is as a result of our activities in Nigeria such as Japan aid which is used to improve basic infrastructure such as school, water supply facilities , health care to mention but a few. Our interventions in other areas like education especially the Universal Basic Education, health, among others makes this cooperation to have direct and immediate impact on the laid down communities.
Since the past 10 years we have activities focused on rural development and especially on basic human needs. We are in the transition stage but soon we are going to move from rural development to urban development. Our priorities will move to urban areas.
We also have technical assistance and human resources development. Over 3, 000 Nigerian government officials have benefitted by participating in training in Japan.
In addition experts from Japan have been deployed from Japan to a number of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) to build capacities of officials in Nigeria. They work with the Federal Ministry of Water Resources, power, education and federal and state ministry of health like in Lagos State.
Your organisation in collaboration with the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD) is reactivating women development centers across the country, why women centers?
There are about 774 Local government areas in Nigeria with each having a women development centre. Some even have several women development centers. But unfortunately before our intervention most of the centres were not active as a result of some challenges like technical or financial. Without good service delivery people will not be interested or able to access the centres.
We decided to re-activate the women so that women can acquire vocational and literacy skills to enable them generate income and improve their livelihoods. Empowerment also improves their social status. We also have the capacity building project of women through the women development centre.
Aside the women development centres which other interventions or projects do you have in the country?
We have another project on rice post-harvest processing and marketing, and working together with the federal ministry of Agriculture.
We discovered that the people majorly engaged in rice processing were women. So directly or indirectly we are providing appropriate technology and knowledge to women. Women’s activities can be improved to more active economic activities.
Are you carrying out that particular project only in Lagos state?
We cannot work with all the states so we chose only Lagos state. JICA is a bilateral development partner. There are several bilateral development partners like the US government deploys United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and UK government deploys the Department for International Development (DFID).
Tell us your experience working in the country so far, particularly the gains and challenges in carrying out projects?
 I came into Nigeria in July 2012 and have spent about a year and half now. I am achieving my foot print in Nigeria. Our activities are getting bigger than before I came.
We have recorded gains, like the primary health centre under the Lagos state maternal health project became more active compared to before our intervention and the Lagos State Health Service Commission recently conferred the award of 1st Non-Governmental Organisation providing support in health care services on JICA, as a result of that.
We did a lot of interventions, supplying equipment and training in the area of water supply. It improved the accessibility of the beneficiaries in the various states to water and avoiding many infectious and communicable diseases. That is why we did a lot of capacity building interventions to the water resources institute, Kaduna.
On the challenges, sometimes the government transaction is very slow. It takes a lot of time. I suggest that transactions at both Federal and State levels and MDAs should be decentralized.
I worked in several countries before coming to Nigeria, but I see this little weakness in the country that the person at the top has to always attend or give approval for even small issues. And it takes time for this thing to pass to the person at the top.
Like in the federal government even small issues need to be approved by the minister. I suggest the minister should approve very important ones but delegate smaller ones to the director in that area. This is not really a challenge but the difficulty working here.
Before, northern Nigeria was very stable but unfortunately affected by poverty that is why we decided to focus our rural development mainly in Northern states but what has been happening there within the last few years has not made it easy to expand our activities there. Also other issues in southern states like kidnapping leave us no choice than to concentrate more of our work in the South-west and the Federal Capital Territory. (FCT).
Also the image of Nigeria is not good outside the shores of the country and before I came I was worried about how I was going to cope but since I came I have discovered that it is not as it was painted. The climate is okay. The food is hot and chilly but very nice. I heard Nigerians are aggressive but since I came I found them very friendly and with clear direction. I am very happy working in Nigeria, and Nigerians only need to address on a few areas of challenges.