1974 - Japanese Diet members meet with Vice President Gerald Ford.

Founded in 1970 by Tadashi Yamamoto, the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE) is one of the few independent nongovernmental organizations in the field of international affairs in Japan. It operates a wide range of programs to promote dialogue and cooperation among leaders from different sectors of society in Japan and around the world.

• promoting Japan’s engagement in the international community;
• encouraging thoughtful and collaborative analysis of critical issues in international affairs;
• strengthening civil society and enhancing its domestic and global contributions; and
• establishing, strengthening, and expanding networks of dialogue and cooperation.

2010 - Prime Minister Kan Opens Access to Life Exhibit (FGFJ).
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In order to fulfill this mission, JCIE operates three interrelated and mutually reinforcing programs: the Political Exchange Program, the Global ThinkNet policy research and dialogue programs, and the CivilNet program to strengthen civil society and philanthropy. It also sponsors a number of cross-sectoral initiatives.

These programs are carried out in collaboration with leading organizations around the world, and JCIE undertakes many of them in cooperation with its American affiliate, JCIE/USA.

As a rule, JCIE creates opportunities for informed policy discussions and does not take policy positions. It is a wholly autonomous and independent organization and it receives no government subsidies. Rather, funding comes from private foundation grants, individual and corporate contributions, and contracts.

JCIE Highlights

2009 SEEDCap Grantee, Pangea.
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• More than 1,000 political leaders have traveled on JCIE’s exchanges for national parliamentarians, parliamentary staff, and state and local legislators.
  
  
• One dramatic way that JCIE helped expand US-Japan dialogue was by arranging the 1975 Japan Socialist Party visit to the United States, its first visit in nearly two decades. This opened the way for growing engagement between the Socialists and US leaders.
  
  
• JCIE has served as secretariat for a wide range of high-level governmental commissions—including the Prime Minister’s Commission on Japan’s Goals in the 21st Century and the First and Second US-Japan Wisemen’s Groups—and international forums such as the Trilateral Commission, the Korea-Japan Forum, and the UK-Japan 21st Century Group.
  
  
• JCIE’s programs to facilitate grantmaking in Japan for overseas companies have distributed more than $2 million to 160 innovative nonprofits. JCIE also founded the Asian Community Trust, Japan’s first charitable trust supported by general fundraising, and in 1997, it helped launch Japan’s first donor advised fund.
  
  
• JCIE’s policy studies are credited with helping make human security one of the pillars of Japan’s foreign policy.
  
  
• JCIE’s working group on “Challenges in Global Health and Japan’s Contributions” has been recognized as instrumental in keeping global health issues on the 2008 G8 Summit agenda and in shaping the language on global health in the declarations at the 2009 G8 Summit.