This paper examines the role of foreign aid or development assistance in helping sustain East Asia's economic dynamism. 

This paper examines the role of foreign aid or development assistance in helping sustain East Asia's economic dynamism. The first section discusses the changing landscape of development assistance and examines the place of East Asia in it. The second section focuses on the recent evolution of Japan's development assistance policy. Japan is singled out as it has been the most important donor for countries in East Asia and is likely to remain so for many years to come. The third section looks at Japan's ODA (official development assistance) from the perspective of selected East Asian countries and highlights the issues, lessons and the recommendations that have emerged in the region on how aid could work to help meet the challenges faced by the region.