ESCAP provides a wide range of technical assistance to developing member and associate
member Governments aimed at enhancing their national capacities in dealing with economic
and social challenges and tackling transboundary problems. Provision of the technical
assistance is made possible through the financial assistance provided by the United
Nations funds and programmes, and bilateral donors. In 1977, the ESCAP secretariat and the
Government of Japan established the Japan-ESCAP Cooperation Fund (JECF) in an effort to
increase technical assistance to the countries. Projects implemented to date within the
framework of JECF have covered a wide spectrum of fields, including agricultural
development; industrial development; promotion of trade and investment; protection of the
environment; the management of natural resources such as water, minerals and energy; human
resources development; assistance to the disadvantaged groups especially women, youth and
persons with disabilities; the development of infrastucture including the Trans-Asian
Railway and the Asian Highway; and the development of tourism. Over the past two decades,
benefits have been shared by most developing member and associate member Governments of
the Commission. In 1998, the ESCAP secretariat carried out an evaluation of five selected
JECF projects with a view to determining the extent to which those projects have achieved
their respective objectives and to assessing the quality of those projects and their
impact on the major beneficiaries. In that connection, evaluation missions were fielded to
China, India, Islamic Republic of Iran, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Viet Nam, during the
period May to July 1998. The evaluation yielded useful lessons that could be applied to
enhance the formulation and implementation of future projects. During the course of the
evaluation, it was strongly felt that ESCAP's technical assistance should be promoted more
widely, beyond the people directly involved in the implementation of the technical
assistance projects. I trust that this website will not only draw your attention to
and enhance your understanding of some of the issues dealt by ESCAP, but also create an
awareness of the benefits which accrued to developing countries under JECF.
Resource constraints necessitated a limitation on the scope of projects to be selected for
evaluation; thus activities carried out by ESCAP for the Pacific island developing
countries have been excluded. I should, however, emphasize that ESCAP through other
technical cooperation projects and through the ESCAP Pacific Operations Centre in Port
Vila, Vanuatu, is committed to meeting the needs of the members and associate members in
the Pacific subregion. I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to the
Government of Japan for its financial assistance through JECF and also for its valuable
contributions to the evaluation exercise.
