Japanese pay 77 USD and British pay 1,387 USD for Chilean visa fee, as I pointed out in explaining how to obtain visa in Chile
But why?
This depends on bilateral relationship: Japan and Chile has more than 115 year long relationship and it is getting tighter for the last couple years.
As I said last time, Japanese can travel anywhere without difficulty one of which is because Japan is one of the best countries in terms of aid (e.g.,some of my friends from Latin America were denied to enter the U.S.)
But do you know exactly what your country is doing for other countries? And did you know that you have a right to know given that all those money come from tax money you are paying.
The world’s largest and most influential providers of aid reaffirmed their commitment to transparency this year, committing to implement the International Aid Transparency Initiative. In summary, they will focus on sharing more information on aid agency.
According to an article called“Opening up aid — but more data is not enough”, as is also the same as education, the quality of information is more important than the quantity.
This video “Make Aid Transparent animation (without campaign ask)” explains very explicitly the importance of the aid transparency.
As a matter of fact, the project I am involved with is managed by Japanese tax.
For both aid country and recipient country, we need more quality information, so let’s shout the following:
What are you doing?!
Hi Hiroshi san, I write in English because audience is larger. (Good thing is you have written in 3 languages! )
In terms of visa, it is bilateral reciprocal matter as you mentioned, so if one country charges a lot, the counterpart also charges a lot. I guess Chilean also must pay a lot to go to the UK. Can you let me know how much they have to pay?
For Latin Americans having difficulty getting into the US is probably the notion that the US is getting to many of them and the US may have a fear of losing the dominance, as you can already see the use of Spanish in the US in the customer service, etc. If they come, many stay. On the other hand, many Japanese think Japan is the best and don’t dare to stay in an inconvenient country – the US does not have a fear that Japanese tourists will stay in the US, heavily rely on the social benefits there.
Regarding ODA, I think much of it is not reaching the beneficiaries. Even if there are some mechanisms to increase transparency, how many are interested in looking at such things? They may disclose information but people are looking at it much. Also there are people who feel too much transparency is inconvenient for them. For example, I heard a scholar was saying at a conference, “ODA is a welfare program for researchers.” If aid is used for research, and if the research results are not utilized to solve the problems, I think what he said is partially right. I also heard a Japanese researcher was saying they get research fund from the government and after submitting the result, the job is finished, and they do not utilize the results to improve policies. I feel the more money flows, the more corruption arises. I wonder what happened to the money given to Afghanistan and Somalia. I also heard about death threat from an NGO worker in Somalia who was trying to blow a whistle. I understand Academy for Educational Development (AED) had an aid scandal in Afghanistan and they had to change their name. My favorite solution is to utilize domestic resources as much as they can.
By the way we will have an aid evaluator coming to our office tomorrow. I will let you know if I find something interesting.
Dear Akemi san,
Thank you again for your message. I just did a quick research on your question on this website (https://visa-fees.homeoffice.gov.uk) and typed the similar type of visa I got in Chile: (1). from Chile (2). Work (3). Business (4). Up to 2 years. The price was 518 USD. I changed the country to the U.S. and Japan and the price are pretty much the same: 518USD and 61800 JPY respectively. So I assume that UK has pretty fair relationship with other countries.
I agree with you point on the characteristic of Latinos’ immigrants, and I personally detest the recent US immigration reform especially when the country’s economy depends heavily on Latinos’s labor force with less than minimum wages. I saw many Latinos who were afraid of disclosing their personal information because of tacit fear (They even used some fake name just in case).
Regarding ODA, you brought up many issues, and they are very interesting, especially research part. Please keep me posted about the aid evaluator. It was interesting that Japanese ODA added its statement by saying not only will it pursue other countries’ prosperity but also the country will aim to get the country’s benefit through ODA. If they are really willing to disclose its information, more reader friendly information should be up on the website or something.
Thanks!