Japan co-hosted Tokyo International Conference on African development (TICAD) in 1993 (TICAD I) and 1998 (TICAD II) in Tokyo with UN (OSCAL (Office of the Special Coordination for Africa and the Least Development Countries) and UNDP) and GCA (Global Coalition for Africa). Since then, TICAD has provided fundamental and comprehensive policy and guideline on African development.
At TICAD I, African countries and their development partners determined to do their utmost for African stability and prosperity.
At TICAD II, African countries and their development partners agreed on the Tokyo Agenda for Action (TAA), the strategic and action oriented guideline, with poverty reduction in Africa and its integration into the global economy as two fundamental goals.
In preparation for holding a TICAD III in the future, Japan and co-organizers will hold ministerial-level meeting on African development in Tokyo in December 2001.
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Background
Although many countries of sub-Sahara Africa pursued structural adjustment programs in earnest through the 1980s, by the 1990s several had been left behind by trends in economic globalization.
The outlook for development in Africa has been seriously clouded by this trend and by a host of other setbacks, including civil war, ethnic strife, conflicts between African states, terrorism, and massive refugee exoduses. Though many countries of the region have demonstrated economic growth in excess of 5 percent per annum, 40 percent of the entire African population must survive on per-capita income of less than one dollar a day.
Alleviating poverty in Africa and integrating the region into the global economy count as major challenges for the international community.
The Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) was held on Japan's initiative in October 1993, culminating with the adoption of the Tokyo Declaration. TICAD 2 convened in Tokyo in October 1998 with the objectives of putting together an even more detailed action plan and pursuing further progress in economic and social development, poverty alleviation, and standards of living throughout Africa.
TICAD 2 resulted in the adoption of the Tokyo Agenda for Action (formally, African Development toward the 21st Century: the Tokyo Agenda for Action). This plan was based on a shared awareness of the value of helping Africa harness the potential of its citizens (ownership) and the necessity of having members of the international community participate as equal partners in that enterprise (partnerships).
The Tokyo Agenda for Action advocated three approaches to African development:
- strengthening coordination,
- regional co-operation and integration, and
- South-South co-operation ( cooperation between Asian and African countries).
It also placed emphasis on three cross-sectorial themes for ventures in development:
- capacity building,
- gender issues, and
- the environment.
The agenda articulates specific strategies for action in three broad fields:
- social development, with attention to education, health care and population, and other measures to assist the poor,
- economic development including industrialization, private-sector development, agricultural development and measures to solve external debt, and
- good governance and the prevention of future conflicts and post conflict efforts in development.
Ticad 2 also drew up an "illustrative list" of more than 370 development programs and projects considered to be consistent with the objectives of the Tokyo Agenda for Action. Japan, moreover, announced new assistance program for Africa in live with it.
Japanese aid to Africa in the wake of TICAD 2
Efforts to achieve the goals of the Tokyo Agenda for Action must be powered by African self-reliance and by concerted efforts by the international community if development programs on the continent are to reach critical mass. To that end, and on the understanding that it should do what it can to sustain the momentum generated by TICAD 2, Japan will steadily impement the aid it has already pledge, starting with projects that are considered to be the most readily achievable.
One of the more noteworthy undertakings Japan has implemented since TICAD 2 is an aid package announced in June 1999 for assistance to South Africa, a country that accounts for 45 percent of the sub-Sahara's entire GNP. It is imperative that South Africa function as a locomotive of economic and social progress if Africa at large is to alleciate poverty and integrate itself into the globaleconomy. These goals also demand that South Africa show further headway in the democratic transition, which was set into motion by the inauguration of the Mandela administration in 1994.
Following the inauguration of the new Mbeki administration, Japan announced that it would continue providing assistance to South Africa on a scale commensurate with it aid track record since 1994 (a cumulative total of $1.5 billion).
From the standpoint of striving for good governance, it should be noted that Nigeria effectively replaced the military administration that had been in power since 1993 with a civilian government in May 1999, following presidential elections and other steps in a process of democratic transition. In view of this change, Japan decided to resume its economic assistance to Nigeria.
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? Embassy of Japan 2001
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Last update: 30-May-2002
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