「アーモンド効果」10万本を自主回収 グリコ、細菌混入で風味劣化

On the 10th of the month, the Population and Demography Policy Committee will be reorganized from the Population Strategy Committee. The new committee will expand its policy scope to include regional imbalances, migration, family changes, labor and social security, and will strengthen business evaluations. While this direction is appropriate, the committee's reorganization alone does not guarantee improved coordination.

The committee's expansion in terms of members and workload does not automatically result in better decision-making. If the changing membership leads only to adjustments in titles and procedures, the transformation will remain superficial. Therefore, the first step is to elevate young people from passive observers to decision-makers.

Officials responsible for local affairs have repeatedly expressed concern that the population policy is too focused on the younger generation. Nonetheless, population strategies must address the needs of all generations. However, the burden for future generations is not evenly distributed. Decisions made today regarding housing, pensions, immigration, and regional policies will have the longest and most significant impact on the young.

Involvement from civil society representatives and specialized committees is necessary, with provisions for youth representation and voting rights. This includes participation in pre-budget consultations and evaluation processes. Secondly, people should not be treated only as means of reproduction and labor. This undermines the legitimacy of population policies.

Assisting women with childbearing and relying solely on immigrants to fill labor shortages, while local governments engage in intergenerational transfers of aid, will only exacerbate competition and discrimination. Each task should be evaluated for gender equality, human rights, and regional impact, and all family structures and migrant groups should be involved in the design process.

Regional policies should also be assessed based on whether healthcare, transportation, and education can be sustained, as well as whether the living standards of settled individuals have improved. Thirdly, the new "pre-budget consultation rights" must be expanded beyond mere budget allocation. This prevents departments from attaching the term "population" to existing projects, while budgetary authorities divide the budget based on the previous standards.

The reports submitted to Congress should not be the end of the process, but rather, the inclusion of comments and weightings for each project, along with the reasons for non-implementation, should be made public to assess the implementation rate in the following year's review. Fourthly, the executive responsibilities for comprehensive tasks must be linked to accountability.

While the President's directly-appointed committee does not have the authority to implement policies such as housing, employment, childcare, and pensions, the roles of central and local governments remain unclear. For each key task, the roles of the designated minister and collaborating departments, the completion deadline, and joint performance indicators must be specified and reported on a quarterly basis.

Fifthly, the expanded scope of issues must be controlled through prioritization and evaluation. Almost no policies are unrelated to population structures, so bundling all projects under the umbrella of population policy would reduce the basic plan to a mere list of departmental projects. Each project should have a clear objective, deadline, and completion condition, with outcomes measured by factors such as the number of births, the burden on young adults' housing costs, the sustainability of employment, accessibility to childcare, gender wage gaps in caregiving, the maintenance of regional healthcare and education standards, and the intergenerational burden of pensions.

The evaluation process should include external audits and self-assessments by the parties involved. The Population Strategy Committee must submit its execution plan within 100 days of its reorganization. The plan should include the President's schedule for the meeting, annual key tasks, responsibility assignments for each task, the method for publicizing budget comments, and the criteria for involving parties.

The public will judge the effectiveness of the committee based on changes in the budget, resolution of conflicts between departments, and the discontinuation of failed projects. Simply changing the sign on the front door is not enough to ensure that the committee's authority and responsibilities are genuinely exercised.