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Introducing KAIZEN in Africa (PDF 708KB)

(October 2009) Japan assimilated and developed the American method of improving quality and productivity as “kaizen” after 1950s. It drew attentions of the world after 1980s, because of Japan's improvement of competitive strengths. As a result, Kaizen began to be adapted to the West and other developing countries. Kaizen assistance by Japanese ODA has been implemented in Asia (ex: Singapore), Latin America (ex: Brazil, Castalia), and South Africa recently (Egypt, Tunisia). Ethiopia is also showing strong interest in Japanese development experiences and introducing kaizen in Ethiopian firms. This book aims to introduce the basic concept and characteristics of kaizen to African audience and explain how Japan has implemented kaizen assistance in developing countries. It also discusses the factors that affect the performance of international kaizen assistance. Kaizen is applicable not only to the manufacturing sector but also to the service sector, public organizations, and non-profit organizations. This book also provides information on the history of Japan's quality and productivity improvement. (October 2009, GRIPS Development Forum) If you wish to have a hard copy, please email us.

　

Mission Report to Germany and the UK (PDF 210KB)

(August 2009) Prof. Izumi Ohno and Sayoko Uesu (research associate) visited Germany (Bonn, Eschborn, Frankfurt) and the UK (London) during July 28 to August 6, 2009 and met policymakers, practitioners, and researchers in the areas of development cooperation, especially on industrial development and public-private partnerships. While the UK focuses on the “market development approach” with attention to market functions and the business environment, Germany takes “multi-level approach” paying attention not only to the investment and business climate (macro-level), but also to industrial structure and inter-firm linkages (meso-and micro-levels).  Given some commonalities found in German and Japanese approaches to industrial development, it appears that there exist scope for the two countries to promote further mutual learning and disseminate jointly their approaches. We also visited the DFID-funded, International Growth Center, which is initiating growth policy engagement in selected African and South Asian countries. In both Germany and the UK, we have felt their strong interest in the East Asian development experiences and Japan's approach to growth support.

　

(January 2009) This publication includes three policy discussion papers which were targeted different audiences, they all evolve around the same principal message that latecomer countries may reach ― an intermediate level of development by macroeconomic stabilization, institution-building, and opening up and liberalizing the national economy, but to go beyond middle income the government must launch more active industrial strategies with tenacity and dexterity. This volume argues that effective policy actions are still possible without violating any WTO rules or other international commitments of our age.