MANILA -- "When the rice seedlings grow to about this high, transplant them to a paddy," Lea Abaoag at the Philippine Rice Research Institute instructed. "Calculate how many hours of sunlight they'll get to plan when you'll harvest them."
Abaoag was passing on the advice to visiting trainees from various African countries at the institute, widely known as PhilRice, an arm of the country's agricultural department. The trainees will spread this knowledge in their home countries.
This training program is part of a growing model for international aid called triangular cooperation, or South-South cooperation -- developing countries aiding each other with knowledge gleaned from richer nations.
PhilRice has been entrusted by the International Rice Research Institute with passing on Japan-taught rice cultivation methods to African countries. In the first round of training that began in 2011, it taught 193 trainees from such countries as Ethiopia and Kenya. In a second round started last year, it plans to teach 238 people from more nations including Nigeria and Zambia.
The Philippine organization's initial aim was to research rice-growing methods that would lower costs and increase crop yields for Philippine farmers. The Japan International Cooperation Agency, or JICA, began sending Japanese experts to help PhilRice in 1989. "Now it's our turn to pass on what we've been taught," said Abaoag
"PhilRice gradually raised its technology level and became independent around 2004," says Kumiko Ogawa of JICA Philippines. "Through teaching others, they'll improve their own techniques," Ogawa said. PhilRice has also dispatched experts to Cambodia to teach about quality control for materials such as chemical fertilizers.
Third-country training
JICA began aiding developing countries in training each other in 1975, when it helped bring Laotian trainees to study at a Thai silkworm research training center. Since then, it has coached a broader range of nations on a variety of topics through third-country training programs.
After helping Mexico build earthquake-resistant housing, JICA worked with the country to aid El Salvador in the same practice after a 2001 earthquake disaster there. It likewise joined Brazil in 2009 on a project to convert a stretch of savannah in Mozambique into farmland, after helping Brazil with a similar program. Sri Lanka aided African officials in improving hospital care after assistance from JICA.
Roughly 3,000 trainees have received instruction per year in JICA-supported third-country training programs since 2006. At first, about half of the trainees came from Asian countries, but that ratio has shifted: in fiscal 2015, roughly 30% came from Africa and 26% from the Middle East. Besides JICA, institutions such as the United Nations, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank engage in triangular cooperation training programs, as do a number of government-funded organizations in the West and elsewhere.
Spreading the wave
The United Nations touted the importance of improving international aid partnerships in its 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015. In 2016, it compiled a document entitled "Good Practices in South-South and Triangular Cooperation for Sustainable Development," in which it hailed the spread of the assistance model.
Japan received aid from the West after World War II, but in 1954 it took up the mantle and joined the Colombo Plan -- an international organization dedicated to aiding developing Asia-Pacific countries. It has been passing on its knowledge via triangular cooperation ever since.
Indonesia held a forum on triangular cooperation last year. The country reported that from 2000 to 2013, it had provided $56 million in support to 700 programs. "Our country is now in a position to not only receive aid, but to give it," said an official from Indonesia's national development planning ministry. If more aid-receiving countries grow into aid-giving ones, it could spur a virtuous cycle of international assistance.
