Gaku Funabashi MPP 1998

Sometimes change happens in a quantum leap, but more often it’s in the steady accumulation of many small steps. Gaku Funabashi knows this well from his job as a private-sector development policy specialist with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), a government agency that lends technical assistance to less developed countries. Funabashi acts as an in-house consultant advising JICA on private-sector and industrial development. “My work,” he says “varies from surveying small and medium enterprises in one country to identifying problems and the projects necessary to solve these problems in another country. I also advise government officials on how to formulate policies to develop the private sector.”

Funabashi’s work has taken him to Thailand, the Philippines, Laos, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Iran, Ghana, and South Africa. While in Bulgaria, where he stayed for more than two years, he came to appreciate the importance of small steps in making a big difference. In the country to advise on industrial development, he quickly discovered that Bulgaria lacked even the most basic foundation for analysis and policymaking.

“There was little micro-level statistical data or information on enterprises. So I started by conducting a thorough industrial survey and an analysis of information we collected. As technical assistance experts, our role is not only recommending necessary policies, but training government officials so they can continue the process themselves after we leave. Hence, I arranged a seminar series on sectoral analysis, and by the time I left Bulgaria, my colleagues were able to analyze industry by themselves. This is still a long way from policy formulation, but it was rewarding because this kind of small achievement is a necessary step for the future.”

Stepping back from the incremental change, Funabashi can see its longer-term impact not only for the developing countries he assists but for his own country, Japan. The methods of cooperation and joint effort he instills in other countries can be reapplied at home. “Personally, I think that even though I’m working for other countries now, I’m also contributing to Japan’s future progress by considering how it should respond to the way the world is moving.” I want to be a part of the change to reshape my own country. And I believe it needs to have other perspectives to start something new.”