Grounding the ground impacts: The Japan-ILO 2026 visit to India

As global supply chains face growing scrutiny, the Japan–ILO partnership is emerging as a powerful model of human-centric development. A recent high-level Japanese delegation visit to India reveals how targeted interventions in Jharkhand and Bihar are moving beyond aid to drive systemic reform—linking economic cooperation with social sustainability.

The strategic partnership between the Government of Japan and the International Labour Organization (ILO) has emerged as a definitive framework for human-centric development in an era marked by heightened scrutiny of global supply chains. This analysis looks at the high-level delegation visit to India organized by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) in March 2026.

By evaluating the implementation of the PPLL (Regional Child Labour Project for South Asia) and PRS (Promoting Rights and Social Inclusion through Organization and Formalization) initiatives, it becomes evident that Japanese-funded interventions (technical and financial support) have led to a shift from temporary aid to systemic institutional reform within the Indian States of Jharkhand and Bihar.

This recent delegation visit highlights the deepening synergy of the India-Japan 'Special Strategic and Global Partnership,' where economic collaboration is increasingly calibrated toward social sustainability and resilient supply chains with evident ground-level impacts.

Diplomatic intent and quality growth

The four-day visit (10-13 March 2026) led by Akiro Yoshida (Deputy Assistant Minister in the International Affairs Division, MHLW) and Yusuke Tsujikawa (Deputy Director in the International Affairs Division, MHLW) was not a routine site tour, but a high-profile manifestation of Japan's determination to quality growth. Japan's foreign policy increasingly posits that the stability of global markets, particularly for critical minerals and services, is closely linked to the elimination of exploitative labour. Following the tour, Mr. Yoshida emphasized that the ‘visibility of Japan’ is closely connected to the tangible efficacy of such projects. This visibility is not only symbolic; it has its basis in the comprehensive understanding and sophisticated synergy between Japanese expertise, the normative framework of the ILO and the localized administrative execution of the Indian government.

JHARKHAND: Formalizing the Invisible

In the Koderma district in Jharkhand, India’s largest mica-producing district, labour has always been characterized by its invisibility and exploitation. The delegation’s visit to Ranchi and Koderma brought to light a two-pronged approach to dismantle the root causes of child labour.

The PPLL Project operated on the premise that child labour is not a choice but an economic symptom. A significant achievement of this project is how it has enabled home-based women workers, who are the main processors of raw mica, to transition into the formal economy by setting up ILO-supported Workers' Information Support Centers (WISC).

These centres act as institutional anchors by providing:

• Legal Literacy: Empowering workers through training programs related to rights-based education, digital financial literacy, and occupational safety

• Institutional Access to welfare: Supporting the registration for government schemes related to health, education, rural housing and employment benefits.

• Collective Bargaining: Enhancing the collective voice of workers by helping with union membership, making the workers less vulnerable.

  
  

Furthermore, the delegation also worked with ‘children clubs’ created in cooperation with the local civil society. These clubs are not just extracurricular outlets, but they are protective environments in which rights-consciousness and awareness are developed. With the intensification of the project in 2024, a significant number of children have been successfully transitioned from the mining environment and reintegrated into the formal schooling system, effectively breaking the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

BIHAR: Developing Cooperative Agency

In Patna, the central focus for the delegation was the PRS Phase 2, addressing the marginalization of domestic workers. Historically, this demographic has been excluded from the protections of standard labour law, but the Japanese financing and collaboration with the Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) has led to a radical structural change. Former domestic workers have experienced a paradigm shift in their profession. The delegation met with women who have established a state-level cooperative providing tiffin and catering services. This shift from an ‘isolated employee’ into a ‘cooperative owner’ best exemplifies this transition.

The ILO-Bihar State Government synergy has been productive, providing a model for other states in India to replicate. Through the project, minimum wages for domestic workers rose by a historic 16.4 percent, and a state-level helpline was created to make sure that complaints about the safety of the workplace or harassment are taken into consideration by the authorities. According to Deepak Anand, Secretary of Labour Resources and Migrant Workers Welfare Department (Bihar), the partnership has ensured that unorganized labourers are no longer invisible to the legislative machinery of the state, to “ensure recognition, fair remuneration and protection for unorganised workers.”

Conclusion

The Japanese delegation highlights a key idea of the ILO-Japan relationship: sustainability through the intersection of knowledge, tools and collective solidarity. As was observed by Michiko Miyamoto (Director, ILO India), placing women at the centre of the developmental architecture is an essential way of providing sustainable livelihoods and developing resilient communities, by giving women access to knowledge and tools - better skills, social protection, finance, and collective solidarity among themselves. These projects show that Japanese ODA is most impactful when it acts as a force multiplier- when it uses targeted financial contributions to enable enormous legislative and social changes. By aligning Tokyo’s diplomatic objectives with the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda, this joint venture is not only mitigating child labour but is also fundamentally redefining the social contract for the most vulnerable workers in the world. Ultimately, it represents a sophisticated intersection of international standards, national objectives, sub-national policy and local agency.

About the Author

Kaveri Jain is a doctoral researcher in International Relations at the Amity Institute of International Studies, Amity University, Noida. Her work focuses on India-Japan relations during the Shinzo Abe era. She has presented at academic conferences, published in peer-reviewed platforms and written on various aspects of India-Japan ties, including foreign policy, technology cooperation, cultural exchange, diaspora diplomacy and engagement in the Indo-Pacific region.