Changing Orientation of Japan’s Official Development Assistance:

Thanks to the enormous assistance by the Allied Powers and especially the United States as well as by the serious efforts of the government and all the other stakeholders at home, Japan was able to undertake various economic, social and political reforms that enabled a rapid economic reconstruction during the immediate postwar years 1945-50. Following the conclusion of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, Japan initiated a number of diplomatic moves, first fulfilling their commitment under the Peace Treaty obligations to making reparations payments, as scheduled, mainly to those countries of Asia and the Pacific where Japan had afflicted atrocities on the people during the World War II, and secondly joining the International Monetary Fund and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and various specialized agencies of the United Nations in order to gain access to financial and technical assistance regime of the international community¹⁾.