World Peace

When I think about world peace, I always got interested in how ODA works for it,because ODA is supported by our tax. I wrote essay about ODA in writing class, I thought this is a good one. However ,I got B, lower than I had expected...sad. There are so many spelling miss though....


ODA Problems

ODA stands for “Official Development Assistance”. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan explains the ODA on its official webpage that, "The main objective of ODA is the promotion of economic development and welfare of developing countries". ODA consists of contributions from donor government agencies to developing countries and to multilateral institutions such as theInternational Bank and other institutions which belong to United Nations. Donor government agencies are those of developed countries. For these countries,the aims of doing the ODA are not to promote economic conditions or welfare for developing countries but to get their national profits. Because of this attitude,problems have risen and been criticized. Developed countries need to stop searching only their national profits. To make it clear, it is useful to classify problems of the ODA on the basis of the donor countries’ real purposes.

The first purpose is making money or business opportunities to make the most of the ODA. The advantages of the ODA are not limited only to developing countries, but donor countries are also able to get advantages by carrying it out. For example,constructing infrastructure such as roadways by support from donor country make profits for both countries. They can build a good relationship and it helps promotion of trading and even make easier to find new buisiness opportunities. However, this kind of bilateral ODA often causes serious problems because governments and related companies only consider about making money. According to the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, the dam in Indonesia that was built by Japanese government support destroyed the surrounding environment and inhabitants around the dam accused Japanese government and Indonesian government.

The next is for natural resources. Developing countries which have abounding natural resources tend to be supported more than other developing countries by developed countries in the name of ODA. This is because donor countries are taking advantage of them by trying to get a stable amount of natural resources from them. This fact causes unfair distribution of support and development differences between developing countries, which means, the countries that really need ODA can end up getting inadequate amount of support. This is the biggest problem of ODA and difficult to solve since bilateral ODA involves the matter of making profits for both sides.

The last one has appeared recently. Making or keeping good relationships with other countries by doing ODA is more important since 9.11, because one nation needs to protect their citizen from terrorism. However, this attitude is also out of the real objective of the ODA and unfair distribution of support can occur, too. People have to consider more why they have to depend on the ODA to get safety although there is the UN Security Council.

By classifying problems of the ODA, it is clear that the United nations should give up bilateral ODA to stop developed countries’ selfishness. They should gather every supports from developed countries and distribute those to developing countries wcich have really needs for helps. The concept of “Equal Distribution “ is needed. The time when each nation searches for national profits only for themselves have to be ended.
Works Cited:
-“Official Development Assistance”,The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.
<http://www.mofa.go.jp/Mofaj/gaiko/oda/nyumon/oda.html>
-“ODA”,Wiikipedia.org.04:01 December 14.
<http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%94%BF%E5%BA%9>