Paper short abstract:

The paper explores ethnographically how and to what extent the triangular cooperation scheme around disaster risk reduction between Japan, Chile, and Latin American recipient countries offers an equitable approach, and for whom.

Paper long abstract:

Triangular cooperation has gained prominence in recent years as a way for 'traditional' donors, 'emerging' donors, and recipient countries to work together in a new configuration of aid that is seen to be more equitable. Japan is one 'traditional' donor country that has placed triangular cooperation at the centre of its development cooperation policies. This paper focuses on the Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Training Program for Latin America and the Caribbean ('the KIZUNA Project') between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Chilean International Cooperation Agency (AGCI), which aims to train about 2000 policymakers and DRR experts across Latin America in the five years between 2015 and 2020. Using an ethnographic perspective, it examines how and to what extent this mode of cooperation offers an equitable process, and for whom. Tracing the multiple streams beyond the KIZUNA Project through which JICA and Chilean counterparts have, over the years, developed knowledge-sharing programmes around disaster preparedness, the paper explores how questions of equity, management, and development converge and diverge in this 'alternative' form of cooperation.