JICA’s World: stories about Japan’s contribution to sustainable development

Since 2009, Japan’s International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has given magazine readers a glimpse into its efforts to promote sustainable development. Published every three months, JICA’s World features articles, analysis and personal stories about development projects and programmes.

Each edition focused on a different topic, and recent editions have covered gender issues, disaster risk reduction, and refugees and displaced people. The Sustainable Development Goals have featured prominently, particularly in editions on SDGs Towards Our Future, Safe and Sustainable Water Supply or Rule of Law for Sustainable Development and Access to Justice for All.

JICA’s World is just one of several initiatives helping to raise SDG awareness and engage citizens for international development. Established in 2006, the JICA Global Plaza is a hub for people to learn about and share views on development. JICA also coorganised the 2017 Global Festa Japan together with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Japan NGO Center for International Cooperation (JANIC). This annual festival was attended by more than 40,000 people in 2017.

In its 2017 report to the UN on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (page 5), Japan acknowledges that “public awareness of the SDGs is not yet sufficient” and commits to further communications campaigns. In the 2014 DAC Peer Review of Japan, the OECD called for “a more systematic, better resourced and better targeted approach to communications” (page 74).