[190905005]
University of the Free State
8 September 2005
Ambassador Toshinori Shigeie
Japan is a relative newcomer to Africa.
In point of fact, as far back as 1580’s, a delegation dispatched from Japan by Christian feudal lords rounded the Cape of Good Hope en route to Lisbon and Rome and on the way back home landed in Mozambique in 1586.
And about three hundred years later, in 1860, the second, as far as the record shows, Japanese delegation made stops in Port Grande, Cape Verde and Luanda, Angola. This coincides with the end of the Edo Period when Japan, governed by a central feudal lord in Edo (today’s Tokyo), communicated and traded, out of its deliberate policy, with the specifically limited peoples of the world (Portuguese and later the Dutch) only through a small island in Kyushu ("Deshima" of Nagasaki). This period in Japan’s history is called the Isolation Era. During this period a sea route was established between Japan, Cape Town and Europe and this is evident by many Japanese treasures like "Koimari" ceramics one finds in Cape Town.
However, for serious African policies we have to wait until the year 1993 when Japan steps up its official activities towards Africa.
In 1993 Japan marks a new beginning in its policies of engagement with Africa. It was in October 1993 that the Japanese government took the initiative to host the first TICAD (Tokyo International Conference on African Development), which was destined to evolve into Japan’s primary initiative for its African policies.
The TICAD initiative came about after the end of the Cold War and the last stages of Apartheid in South Africa. It occurred just at a juncture when the interests of the world’s major powers were shifting away from Africa, towards Eastern Europe and elsewhere. For that reason this initiative by Japan was significant. It was also the time of "African assistance fatigue" being felt by major donors and at the time of "Afro-pessimism."
One could identify five major milestones in the relations of Japan with Africa, that is to say,
The three TICAD meetings facilitated a lot of high-level policy dialogue and contributed to establishing solidarity between Africa and its partners. The next TICAD meeting is expected to take place in 2008. From previous TICAD Meetings, various outcomes have been achieved from these Japanese policies and activities.
Focal points for meeting African and Asian business interests were formed by Japan, such as the Hippalos Center and the Africa-Asia Business Forum, which I will discuss later on.
In the context of the Okinawa G8 summit held in 2000, an Africa and G8 bridge was established in a form of G8 outreach program, which continues till today. Africa is now firmly embedded as an important item on the G8 agenda, and a group of African issue "sherpas" have been appointed.
Africa had become one of Japan’s major focuses in its foreign policy - together with Asia and the Middle East. In January 2001, Japan’s Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori conducted the first African visit by an incumbent Japanese Prime Minister and declared in his policy speech made in South Africa "There will be no stability and prosperity in the world in the 21st Century unless the problems of Africa are resolved."
Two key concepts "Ownership" and "Partnership" were established as centrally important concepts to guide the African development. Under the first concept, it goes that development policies and programs must be owned by those countries which are developing, not by those who want to help. With the ownership established, the rest of the world must assist and form a partnership for development with developing countries.
Ownership of development is clearly embraced in Africa’s 2001 adoption of NEPAD. Moreover, South Africa - and more personally President Mbeki himself - is a founding architect of NEPAD. For the first time in its history, Africa has its own vision of development that is of its own making, embodying both the criteria of ownership, as well as the requirements for good governance. In the TICAD process it was agreed that international efforts must be mobilized in order to support NEPAD. And forging a partnership is the work of TICAD, G8, UN and other processes.
Throughout the TICAD discussions, important issues were emphasized. These were :
The Japanese government often describes its African policy as having three "pillars".
The first pillar is "human-centered development." It emphasizes basic human needs, human resource development and "human security" perspectives. The Human Security Fund endowed by Japan under the auspices of the UN is a reflection of the importance Japan gives to this first pillar.
"Poverty reduction through economic development" is the second pillar. Under this policy, Japan places singular importance on the growth side of economic development. Japan accepts measures that are needed to cope with poverty reduction and to fulfill basic human needs, but it believes poverty will be best eradicated through the expansion of economic activities and growth. And that should be an overriding strategy. This policy leads to, for example, developing agricultural production, building infrastructure and expanding trade and investment.
To follow up trade and investment, in November 2004 the TICAD Asia-Africa Trade and Investment Conference (TICAD-AATIC) was organized in Tokyo. The conference noted that the increase in ODA volume is not a panacea for Africa, emphasizing the African efforts to develop the private sectors in order to realize economic growth through the expansion of trade and investment. It discussed trade and investment exchange between Asia and Africa, the need to resolve problems causing the high costs associated with conducting business-doing in Africa as well as the need for sound roles and policies of governments.
The third pillar is to help with the "consolidation of peace." Prime Minister Koizumi said to TICAD III, "Peace, of course, is the basic foundation for development. Japan has participated in peacekeeping operations in countries including Mozambique. Recently, Japan has engaged in cooperation for the consolidation of peace in countries including Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Sudan." It was to Africa that Japan dispatched its Self Defense Forces as one of the first cases of Japan’s participation in UN PKO. The Self Defense Force was first sent to Mozambique in 1993 to provide transportation capability and later in 1994 to Zaire to assist Rwandan refugees.
Obviously its Official Development Assistance plays a central role as Japan tries to strengthen its ties with Africa. Japan’s ODA reached its highest level of $14.5 billion in 1995 and subsequently slowly declined, against the backdrop of the economic and fiscal stagnations as well as the increasing public demand for more information and accountability in Japan. The total ODA of Japan for 2003 was $8.9 billion, still making it the world’s second largest donor. The Government’s proposed ODA budget for JFY 2005 is \786.2 billion, 3.8% less than JFY2004.
However, this trend of decline has been reversed by the recent new policy initiatives. At the 2005 G8 Summit hosted by the UK government in Gleneagles in July 2005, where Prime Minister Tony Blair made Africa into one of the two major themes of the summit besides the issue of climate change, Japan announced its intention to add $10 billion to its ODA for the next five years. This was the second major policy announcement by Japan following an announcement made in Indonesia at the Asia/Africa summit of April 2005 to double its African aid for the next three years. At Gleneagles, the G8 leaders affixed their signatures to the pages of their specific aid commitments, in order to quell the criticism that the G8 has not yet fully implemented its past promises.
Africa normally gets about 10% of Japan’s ODA whereas 60% of it goes to Asia. Africa received 8.8% of Japan’s total ODA or $530 million in 2003, compared with 8.7% or $584 million in 2002. Japan’s aid will increase for Africa for the future; JICA, an arm to implement Japan’s technical cooperation, is expanding its African programs for 2005 under the strong leadership of Dr. Sadako Ogata, its President.
The accumulated total of Japan’s ODA extended to Africa over the past ten years has reached $12 billion. Japan has hosted over 10,000 Africans for technical training and it has sent over 7,000 Japanese young volunteers (JOCVs), which includes one placed in Bloemfontein, and experts to work in Africa towards its development. Mrs. DaphneMashile-Nkosi, Deputy Chairperson of WDB Trustees and a successful business woman, with whom I lunched with the other day, was one of those JICA trainees.
I discern four major challenges and opportunities that lie ahead particularly with regard to further cooperation between South Africa and Japan for African development.
NEPAD
NEPAD is an epoch-making achievement for Africa. Through NEPAD, Africa has agreed on economic development principles and the importance of good governance. The APRM (African Peer Review Mechanism) is an innovative idea to push forward good political and economic governance. Yet NEPAD is an enormously challenging, ambitious enterprise. It is more than a set of political declarations. It is meant to be an operational program. Therein lies the real challenge of NEPAD. On the economic side projects must be formulated, required financial resources must be mobilized from inside and outside Africa, even if NEPAD would not necessarily be a legal signatory to contracts, and projects must be implemented. As one African leader rightly said, NEPAD cannot afford to fail.
Japan works with NEPAD. It has made an expert available to the NEPAD secretariat, and in the autumn of 2004 Japan concluded an agreement with NEPAD to enlarge and implement the SMASSE (Strengthening Mathematics and Science in Secondary Education) projects for re-training science and mathematics teachers in African countries. Japan, so far, has collaborated with NEPAD over programs of $490.000 worth (as of February 2005).
Asia- Africa cooperation
TICAD III agreed on promoting Asia-Africa cooperation. Lessons could be learned from Asian developmental experiences. However, the more important values of Asia for Africa is in business and investment partnership. Asia is already an important trading partner of Africa and an important investor in Africa.
In 2000, Japan initiated within the UNDP the Asia Africa Business Forum. It is a program for business people from both Asia and Africa to meet and discuss mutual business opportunities with a view to reaching concrete business agreements. Through this program close to 150 actual business deals have been made. Another example for Asia-Africa cooperation is the Asia Africa Investment and Technology Center (Hippalos Center) which was established in Malaysia with Japanese funding. It collects information on investment and technology opportunities in African countries for the usage by prospective Asian investors. The Center also regularly sends business survey missions to Africa, the latest ones dispatched to Namibia and Mozambique was in 2004.
As one well knows, in order to push forward cooperation the Asia-Africa Summit was co-hosted by the Presidents of South Africa and Indonesia in April 2005.
Another form of cooperation that Japan strenuously promotes is called South-South or Trilateral Cooperation where Japan and another country collaborate to help another third country. Already Japan has been working with, for example, Morocco and Tunisia to train ‘third country’ African citizens in capacity building. Japan and South Africa are well positioned to do similar work in various fields. In October 2004 South Africa and Japan (JICA) conducted a training seminar for police officials of the Democratic Republic of Congo. A similar trilateral cooperation was conducted for elections in the DRC.
Cooperation for peace consolidation
Japan has publicly stated that it wanted to engage more in peace consolidation efforts. Africa is actively trying to resolve its own conflicts and build peace in the continent. As the African Union spearheads these efforts, Japan, for its part, has, since 1996, contributed an accumulation of approximately $2 million to the AU Peace Fund. Further, it is hoped that Japan will find an appropriate way to help African countries to train its personnel for UN PKO activities. And it is also hoped that Japan will be participating in more of UN PKO activities in Africa.
Peace-making and peace-building need to be comprehensive and conducted seamlessly. Experience shows that Japan is good at working in this transition from peace-making to rehabilitation and reconstruction. The transition would involve community building. It may involve de-mining, demilitarization and reintegration of combatants back into civil activities. These are areas where Japan could readily work with African partners and contribute a lot.
South Africa as an "African engine"
South Africa is destined to be a major engine of economic growth in Africa, given its economic size and development. Its success in economic development is good for economies in the rest of Africa; it provides not only a constructive model for economic development, but also a market for other African countries’ products as well as capital necessary for development. Economic development takes place through economic inter-dependence. One is impressed, for example, with the growing prosperity in Mpumalanga, South Africa’s northeast province, which is benefiting from the intensifying economic linkages between South Africa and Mozambique. And economic development is often un-even from country to country, which one has to accept as general economic reality so long as countries are progressing.
Japan’s ODA, trade and investment altogether contributes to the development of South Africa. Japan offered assistance packages of $1.3 billion and $1.5 billion in 1994 and 1999 respectively. Japan’s priority areas are education, water supplies, health care and job training including capacity training.
Given the level of development of the South African economy, trade and investment is extremely important.
Trade continues to be brisk between Japan and South Africa. Japan’s trade with South Africa amounts to about half of Japan’s total trade with the entire African continent. In 2004, Japan imported approximately $4.5 billion worth of goods from South Africa, (12% up from the previous year), and Japan’s exports to South Africa amounted to ¥314.4 billion (approximately $2.9billion, 33% up from the previous year). Total both way trade for 2004 was ¥ 812.6 billion (approximately $7.4 billion), 25% up from previous year. Main items of South Africa’s exports to Japan are rare metals and now automobiles. South Africa has become one of the major automobile exporters to Japan. Japan’s exports to South Africa, in terms of basic trends, remains steady, reflecting the increasing direct Japanese investments, particularly in automotive industries, which tends to substitute imports from Japan.
Japan is the fifth largest investor in South Africa. Automotive industries constitute an important part of Japan’s investments in South Africa. Japanese automotive industries are expanding their investments in South Africa and they are establishing their South African production facilities as platforms for export to other markets in the world including Africa and Europe. And this is inducing further investments by Japanese companies in tire and auto-parts productions. In this regard one has to mention another successful investment which has involved private-public cooperation between South Africa, Japan and Mozambique. It is the $2.2 billion aluminum smelting project (MOZAL), the largest of its kind in the world, in Maputo, Mozambique.
Let me give you the following cases as a few more successful examples:
- Toyota South Africa Motors
Toyota, having manufactured in Durban, South Africa for the past 40 some years, has
recently taken a new initiative to strengthen its South African production by consolidating production lines and increasing exports. It began in April, 2005 to produce HuLux pick-ups (IMV) in Durban. For the IMV production, approximately R2.4 billion has been invested. The present production of 120,000 will be increased to 200,000 in 2010 and employment will increase further to over 8000 workers.- Hernic Corporation
In 2002, Mitsubishi Corporation acquired 53.2% of shareholding of Hernic Ferrochrome (Pty) Ltd, a ferrochrome (essential raw materials in manufacturing stainless steel) mining company founded in Brits in the 1980’s. Hernic is increasing its ferrochrome production in light of the world’s increasing demand. Japan hugely depends on South Africa for various precious metals including ferrochrome.- Sasol Dia SAcrylates
In 2004 Sasol, South Africa’s chemical giant, and Mitsubishi Chemical put in operation a joint venture called Sasol Dia Acrylates in Sasolburg south of Johannesburg. This company is aiming to produce 10% of the world’s acrylates production.Private sectors play leading roles in trade and investment. For this reason business-to-business cooperation is essential. The ‘South Africa-Japan Business Forum’, established in 2001, is promoting dialogue between business leaders of the two countries under the co-chairmanship of the South Africa Foundation and the Keidanren.
Conclusion
Africa continues to be encumbered by various staggering political conflicts and enormous health problems, to mention only a few main challenges.
However, there are always two sides to the coin. One can be pessimistic about Africa by looking at situations in poverty areas in Africa, never ending conflicts in various places and only slowly developing human resources. However, we should not close our eyes to various positive developments taking place in Africa, particularly in Southern Africa.
Elections are taking place, with leaders changing democratically. Economies are gradually developing. Asia, who stood more or less at par with Africa at the beginning of 1960’s have succeeded for the past 40 years. Even Japan was still a relatively poor country 60 years ago and a period of 50 years of hard work has paid off for Japan, too. So, a continuation of hard work and good policies will surely make a difference over 10 or 20 years and surely over 50 years, which is about a single generation. With this in mind, I am optimistic about the future of Africa.
(This essay is an extrapolation of the talks given by the author on various occasions in South Africa.)