This document discusses the administrative capacity challenges faced by municipal governments in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan following the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. It finds that the tsunami heavily damaged municipalities faced a dramatic increase in reconstruction budgets and need for public servants, especially civil engineers. However, securing sufficient public servants was difficult due to shortages. Municipalities relied primarily on dispatching public servants from other areas and fixed-term recruitment. Over 950 public servants were dispatched, compared to around 290 recruited. Despite these efforts, staffing shortages remained a challenge, particularly for engineering roles critical to reconstruction procurement. The experiences provide lessons for preparing administrative capacity in future large-scale disasters.

1. Administrative Capacity for
Reconstruction Procurement:
Lessons Learnt from the Great
East Japan Earthquake
Toru SAKANE
Hosei University (Japan)

2. COMPOSISION
INTRODUCTION
BACKGROUND SITUATIONS
SHORTAGE OF PUBLIC SERVANTS
RECRUITMENT
DISPATCH
SUMMARY

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INTRODUCTION
Just After the Tsunami in Minamihama-district, Ishinomaki-city
（provided by Ishinomaki Nichi-Nichi News Paper)

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INTRODUCTION
After the Tsunami – Ishinomaki City Hospital and Cultural Center

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INTRODUCTION
After the Tsunami – Ishinomaki City Hospital, the Entrance Gate

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INTRODUCTION
After the Tsunami – Ishinomaki City Hospital, Grand Floor

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INTRODUCTION
Just After the Tsunami at Minamihama-district in Ishinomaki-city

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INTRODUCTION
Situation of Minamihama-district in Ishinomaki-city as of 1 Aug 2014

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INTRODUCTION
Situation of Minamihama-district in Ishinomaki-city as of 1 Aug 2014

10. .
INTRODUCTION
A Bridge damaged by the Tsunami in Minamihama-district,
Ishinomaki-city

11. .
INTRODUCTION
A Bridge damaged by the Tsunami in Minamihama-district,
Ishinomaki-city

12. INTRODUCTION
 The Great East Japan Earthquake on 11th March 2011
severely damaged the Pacific coastal area in the Tohoku
region.
 A large section of the budget has already been allocated
and spent on these efforts and will continue to be spent in
the future.
 The administrative capacity matter is one of the most
important and difficult.
 How did various administrative agencies in Japan approach
the administrative capacity matter including civil
engineering procurement capacity?

13. INTRODUCTION
Municipal Governments and Miyagi Prefecture
Main focus of this paper is on municipal governments.
Municipal governments are city, town and village. Municipal
governments are important for reconstruction because they are regarded
as main responsible for planning and implementing the
reconstruction in each administrative area.
Main focus of this paper is on Miyagi prefecture.
Casualty number in Miyagi is more than 10,000 while numbering
more than 5,000 in Iwate and more than 3,000 in Fukushima. Miyagi is
the biggest prefecture in the Tohoku region in terms of both population
and GDP.

14. BACKGROUND SITUATIONS
Budget Increase after the Earthquake
 The tsunami-stricken municipal governments in Miyagi
prefecture faced enormous budget increase after the
tsunami and earthquake.
 Especially public investment expense to restorative
construction is marking the tremendous increase.
 Public procurement is very important to the process of
the implementation of such public investment expenses.

15. Table 1: Comparison of Public Investment Expense between Expense between the Original 2010 Fiscal Year Budget and
the 2013 Fiscal Year Budget
Source: Miyagi Prefectural Government. (2013a). “Comparison of Initial Regular Budget before and after the Earthquake -
Investment Expense (2010 and 2013 Fiscal Year)”
BACKGROUND SITUATIONS
Comparison of Public Investment Expense Before and After the Disaster
1431,1332,757Rifu Town
15652,106133,280Sendai City
2141,9756,207Tagajyo City
3082,96612,106Natori City
4981,6019,570Shiogama City
5313,46721,880Iwanuma City
7182,03516,645Higashimatsushima City
14325,65186,598Ishinomaki City
197962913,076Onagawa Town
25873178,517Matsushima Town
26232,37364,622Kesennuma City
39621496,053Sichigahama Town
835552744,560Minamisanriku Town
1071641945,318Watari Town
1132623827,194Yamamoto Town
Increase
(%)
2010 fiscal year
(million yen)
2013 fiscal year
(million yen)
1431,1332,757Rifu Town
15652,106133,280Sendai City
2141,9756,207Tagajyo City
3082,96612,106Natori City
4981,6019,570Shiogama City
5313,46721,880Iwanuma City
7182,03516,645Higashimatsushima City
14325,65186,598Ishinomaki City
197962913,076Onagawa Town
25873178,517Matsushima Town
26232,37364,622Kesennuma City
39621496,053Sichigahama Town
835552744,560Minamisanriku Town
1071641945,318Watari Town
1132623827,194Yamamoto Town
Increase
(%)
2010 fiscal year
(million yen)
2013 fiscal year
(million yen)

16. SHORTAGE OF PUBLIC SERVANTS
 Faced with such a dramatic increase of public
investment expense, these 15 heavily tsunami-
stricken Miyagi municipal governments must
prepare additional public servants.
 However, to secure a sufficient number of
public servants is very difficult.

17. SHORTAGE OF PUBLIC SERVANTS
Needs, Fulfilment and Remaining Shortage of Public Servants
.
.
Table 2: Needs, Fulfilment and Remaining Shortage of Public Servants in the 15 Tsunami-stricken Miyagi
Municipal Governments as of 1st March 2014
Source: Miyagi Prefectural Government. (2014a). “Staff Shortage Situation in the 15 Coastal Municipal Governments in 2013 Fiscal Year (as
of 1st March 2014)”

18. SHORTAGE OF PUBLIC SERVANTS
The shortage is especially severe in civil engineering.
This shortage of civil engineering includes land
readjustment, water and sewerage, collective relocation,
fishery harbour and so on.
Civil engineer is essential to the implementation of
public procurement for the reconstruction of roads,
housing, land adjustments, ports, public facilities and so on.

19. Table 3: Total Shortage of Public Servants in the 15 Tsunami-stricken Miyagi Municipal Governments listed in Table 2 as of
1st March 2014
Source: Miyagi Prefectural Government. (2014b). “Staff Shortage Situation in the 15 Coastal Municipal Governments in 2013 Fiscal Year:
Classified by Job Category (as of 1st March 2014)”.
SHORTAGE OF PUBLIC SERVANTS
Total Shortage of Public Servants

20. RECRUITMENT
Overview of Recruitment
Table 4: Number of Recruited Public Servants to Fulfil the Shortage
Source: Miyagi Prefectural Government. (2014a). “Staff Shortage Situation in the 15 Coastal Municipal Governments in 2013 Fiscal Year (as
of 1st March 2014)”.

21. RECRUITMENT
Recruitment of Fixed-term Public Servants
 The Most typical recruitment type is fixed-term
because public reconstruction work is regarded as a non-
permanent administrative activity, limited and rather
intensive.
 In reality, recruitment is the supplementary option for
most of the tsunami-stricken Miyagi municipal
governments.
.

22. RECRUITMENT
Other Mechanisms
There are several other recruitment mechanisms.
Recruitment of permanent public servants
Recruitment of retired public servants
Reappointment
However, these types of recruitment practices are also not
enough to fulfill the needs.

23. DISPATCH
Overview of Dispatch
 Dispatch, not recruitment is the most used
method to fulfil the gap.
 Total dispatch number (954) is more than
three times of total recruitment number (289)
as of 1st March 2014.
.

24. .
Table 5: Number of Dispatched Public Servants Received to Fulfil the Shortage
Source: Miyagi Prefectural Government. (2014a). “Staff Shortage Situation in the 15 Coastal Municipal Governments in 2013 Fiscal Year (as of 1st March
2014)”.
DISPATCH
Number of Dispatched Public Servants Received to Fulfill the Shortage

25. DISPATCH
Self-Arrangement
 Each tsunami-stricken municipal government arranges
dispatch with other municipal governments and
prefectures. Typical examples are dispatches based on
disaster mutual cooperation agreement and dispatches
based on sister-city or twin town relationship.
 However, self-arrangement has lots of varieties.
ex. Tokyo metropolitan government cooperated to some
tsunami-stricken municipal governments even without these
pre-existed agreement or relationship: though 47 have been
employed since September 2012 on a one year fixed-term.
Most of public servants were renewed and 42 are still
working at the 10 municipal governments as of March

26. DISPATCH
MIC SCHEME
MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications) organizes
the dispatch scheme.
MIC gathers information on human resource needs in each
damaged municipal government through each damaged prefecture.
MIC sends cooperation request to municipal governments
across Japan.
MIC gathers dispatch possibilities and offers from municipal
governments.
The important reason why this MIC scheme is so powerful and
effective are MIC’s national-wide influence to local governments.

27. DISPATCH
Dispatch after Recruitment by Miyagi
prefectural government
 The Miyagi prefectural government conducts
advertisement and recruitment activities on behalf of
the tsunami-stricken municipal governments.
 In this recruitment, career open seminars are held not only
in Sendai city but also in Tokyo to attract more
candidates.

28. DISPATCH
Other Mechanisms
There are other dispatch mechanisms.
The Miyagi prefectural government and other non-
tsunami-stricken municipal governments within Miyagi
also dispatch their own public servants.
The Reconstruction Agency is also arranging a scheme to
attract human resources from private companies.
Direct dispatch from private companies is also
conducted.
However, the number of these dispatches is limited.
.
.

29. SUMMARY.
Efforts and mechanisms to fulfil reconstruction engineering
capacity and overall administrative human resource capacity in
the tsunami-stricken municipal governments in Miyagi prefecture are
identified. Recruitment and dispatch are two methods.
To increase the number of permanent public servants is only a
special option.
Most typical recruitment is fixed-term.
There are several other recruitment mechanisms such as
recruitment of retired public servants and reappointment, but those are
not so much used.
Recruitment

30. SUMMARY
Dispatch
The number of dispatched is more than three times the recruitment
number in Miyagi 15 tsunami-stricken municipal governments.
Self-Arrangement : the 15 municipal governments arrange dispatch.
Through the MIC scheme, many public servants are dispatched.
The Miyagi prefectural government’s advertisement and
recruitment efforts let these 15 be possible to receive the recruits.
The Miyagi prefectural government and other non- tsunami-stricken
municipal governments within Miyagi prefecture also dispatch their own
public servants. However, the capacity to send is not so much.

31. SUMMARY
Remaining Challenges
Despite these efforts and results, there are still shortages of
both public servants as a whole and specifically engineering
officers including procurement-related human resources
personal.
-How to fill this remaining gap is a great challenge.
-How to keep this present situation and promote national-
wide cooperation is also the important challenge.
As summarized above, the experiences, efforts and challenges
can be a good lessons in preparation for such future disasters.

32. REFERENCES
 Miyagi Prefectural Government. (2013a). “Comparison of Initial Regular Budget before and after the Earthquake -
Investment Expense (2010 and 2013 Fiscal Year)”.
 Miyagi Prefectural Government. (2013b). “Current State of Human Resource Assistance to Disaster-stricken Municipal
Governments (Summary of Personnel Division)”, 23rd October 2013.
 Miyagi Prefectural Government. (2014a). “Staff Shortage Situation in the 15 Coastal Municipal Governments in 2013
Fiscal Year (as of 1st March 2014)”.
 Miyagi Prefectural Government. (2014b). “Staff Shortage Situation in the 15 Coastal Municipal Governments in 2013
Fiscal Year: Classified by Job Category (as of 1st March 2014)”.
 MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). (2011). “Request of Human Resource Assistance for the Great
East Japan Earthquake”, 22nd March 2011.
 MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). (2012). “Human Resource Assistance of Damaged Municipal
Governments for the Great East Japan Earthquake”, 24th February 2012.
 MIC (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications). (2013). “Utilization Scheme of Retired Staff (Direct
Recruitment by Municipal Government)”.
 Reconstruction Agency. (2014). “Adoption of Human Resource Dispatch from Private Companies through ‘Work for
Tohoku (Project of Establishing Reconstruction Human Resource Platform)’ ”. 28th February2014.
 M. Sakamoto and K. Yamori. (2012). “Understanding Mutual Assistance Coordination among Prefectures and
Municipalities in a Multi-location Disaster through the Experience of the Great East Japan Earthquake”. pp. 391-
400. Institute of Social Safety Science (18). November 2012.
 S. Takana. (2012). “A Sustainable Public Procurement System for Large-scale Natural Disasters: the Case of the
Temporary Housing Program after the East Japan Earthquake”, Fifth International Public Procurement Conference
roceedings (17-19 August 2012), pp. 3536-3555, Seattle, USA, 2012.
 Tokyo Metropolitan Government. (2012). “Application Guide for Tokyo Metropolitan Government Fixed-term General Staff in 2012”,
20th April 2012.

33. .
INTRODUCTION
Ishinomaki Kawahiraki Festival on 1 Aug 2014

34. .
INTRODUCTION
Ishinomaki Kawahiraki Festival on 1 Aug 2014

35. .
INTRODUCTION
Ishinomaki Kawahiraki Festival on 1 Aug 2014

36. .
INTRODUCTION
Evening riverside view of Minamihama-district in Ishinomaki-city as
of 1 Aug 2014

37. Thank You