On September 27, the Institute for Global Governance Research (GGR) hosted the 20th GGR Brown Bag Lunch Seminar, “Development Cooperation on the Ground – Through Governance and Peacebuilding Development Assistance” with Ms. Chikako Kodama (Ph.D. student, Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University). Prior to her doctoral studies, Ms. Kodama worked for the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan in the field of peacebuilding and democratic governance for about 23 years.

As an example of economic cooperation for the humanitarian-development-peace nexus, Ms. Kodama shared her experience in assisting Afghan refugees returning to their country in the early 2000s. She explained that the assistance was provided not only to the refugees, but also to support businesses in the areas where the refugees had settled, so that other Afghans in the community would also benefit from the assistance. As a difficult experience, Ms. Kodama cited the Palestinian example of development under occupation. She sometimes faced difficulties, such as how to provide support that would improve the rule of law in a situation where the movement of judges was blocked by barriers and trials were slow to get underway. Meanwhile, as an example of governance for authoritarian regimes, she cited support for the government and civil society to work together on legal reform processes. She concluded her presentation with examples of how private sector activities aimed at sustainability have been used to support governance in Cambodia, suggesting that development can be approached from a variety of angles.

【Event report prepared by】
Minhee JEONG (Doctoral student, Graduate School of Law, Hitotsubashi University)