Japan's plan to cut back on official development assistance will worsen the nation's economic prospects by shrinking the volume of trade it enjoys with the rest of the world, a high-ranking official of the United Nations Development Program said.
Hafiz Pasha, U.N. assistant secretary general and assistant administrator of the UNDP, said that a planned 10 percent reduction in ODA funding for fiscal 2002, part of budget outlines announced in early August, is not the answer to Japan's economic woes.
"My own feeling is that a cutback in ODA at this time will worsen the prospects of the world as a whole, particularly developing countries, and will lead to a deeper recession elsewhere," Pasha told The Japan Times in a recent interview.