Tokyo, March 9, 2006
At the invitation of the Japanese government, Professor Firmino Mucavele, Chief Executive of the NEPAD Secretariat, visited Japan between 2 and 9 March 2006. Prof. Mucavele was accompanied by Dr. Bamanga Tukur, Executive President of the African Business Roundtable (ABR), Mr. Godwin Punungwe, NEPAD Transport Advisor, and Ms. Jeanette Tait, Personal Assistant to the Chief Executive.
On March 6, the Japan-NEPAD Policy Dialogue was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tokyo. The meeting was chaired by Ambassador Yoichi Otabe, Personal Representative of the Prime Minister for Africa and Director-General for Sub-Saharan African Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Also present from the Japanese side were representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, as well as the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO).
Both the Japanese and NEPAD sides shared common recognition on the importance of the timely and steady implementation of various commitments in support of Africa, which were expressed during the past year in the fora such as the Asian African Summit in Indonesia, OECD Ministerial Council Meeting, G8 Gleneagles Summit, the High-Level Plenary Meeting at the UN General Assembly, and the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the WTO. At the same time, both sides also recognized that Africa’s ownership, mutual responsibility and follow-up on partnership commitment were important for attaining sustainable development in an effective manner. The NEPAD delegation informed the Japanese side that it was working on an initiative to establish a fund to accelerate the implementation of infrastructure projects through utilizing a certain portion of pension funds of African countries. The Japanese side reaffirmed its commitment to support NEPAD through the TICAD process.
The Japanese side stated that, for the purpose of contributing to even more effective and sound implementation of NEPAD, Japan had identified four out of eight NEPAD Programme of Action priorities as Japan’s immediate priority sectors to support NEPAD. Such sectors include: (a) infrastructure, (b) agriculture, (c) market access (trade and investment promotion, as well as private sector development), and (d) human resources development (education and health). At the same time, both sides agreed to continue discussions on the future possibility of cooperation in areas such as environment and science and technology, noting the importance of these sectors for Africa.
Both sides agreed on the need for ensuring that NEPAD projects are appropriately aligned and included in each African country’s national development plan or Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP), and the NEPAD side stated that through its Steering Committee that it would undertake to obtain regular reports from national governments through NEPAD Steering Committee confirming the alignment of these projects.
The NEPAD Secretariat welcomed Japan’s plan to dispatch to the NEPAD Secretariat the replacement of the JICA expert to the NEPAD Secretariat whose tenure of duty ended in February 2006, in order to accelerate NEPAD project formulation. The succeedingreplacing expert will assume his post in April 2006.
As for the infrastructure sector, the Japanese side explained its two track approach; the fast track to follow up short term action plan (STAP) projects, and the legitimate approach to support the World Bank’s diagnostic study in the framework of the Africa Infrastructure Consortium, and reported that it had undetaken the screening of STAP projects and identified seven out of them for further surveys and feasibility studies necessary for their implementation. Such projects include the Nacala Development Corridor (between Nampula and Cuamba) for which Japan has been committed to conduct a feasibility study in the FY2006, as well as road construction between Kédougou and Faleme (81.3 km) in the Mali-Senegal South Corridor where the procedure for extending concessional yen loan is at itsthe final stage. The NEPAD side welcomed Japan’s firm commitment to the implementation of NEPAD, and at the same time expressed its expectation for further support by from Japan for recently identified new development corridors.
Those NEPAD STAP projects specifically reported by Japan in the dialogue include:
The Japanese side also pointed out the need for better coordination among the NEPAD Secretariat, the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and national governments on project management. It also expressed its expectation that the NEPAD Secretariat and RECs would play a more facilitative role to encourage member countries to examine further the economic impacts of each infrastructure project in the correlation with the private sector’s investment projects, as well as to secure appropriate resources for infrastructure maintenance. The NEPAD side undertook to ensure coordination through the establishment of management units and action plans with clear roles and responsibilities for each of the regional projects.
Both sides reconfirmed the importance of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Programme (CAADP) as a core sector programme of NEPAD in realizing food security, poverty reduction and sustainable economic growth, in light of the crucial importance of agriculture and rural development in Africa. The NEPAD side stated that the improvement of agricultural productivity and the promotion of agro-business are the key for Africa’s economic growth, stressing that Africa has comparative advantage in agriculture. In responding to the statement by the NEPAD side, the Japanese side explained the direction of its assistance policy on agricultural and rural development in Africa in such fields such as agricultural productivity, including the support for development and dissemination of New Rice for Africa (NERICA), strengthening of the linkage between rural villages and market, and capacity building of local administration and farmers. In this context, it was reported by the Japanese side that, it decided toa grant of $1.37 million dollars to a project implemented by the FAO in Uganda for the diffusion and production promotion of NERICA.
The NEPAD side informed the Japanese side that the NERICA programme was designated as a NEPAD Flagship programme by the African Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) at its last meeting in January 2006 in Khartoum. It was agreed by both sides to seek ways to appropriately reflect research and the dissemination programme of NERICA in the early action plans of the CAADP currently under discussion.
The Japanese side made a presentation on a follow-up measures to the TICAD Asia Africa Trade and Investment Conference (AATIC) in November 2004, mainly focusing on the supply-side, emphasizing Japan’s commitment to further promote trade and investment between Asia and Africa; thus contributing to Africa’s economic growth. The NEPAD side pointed out the high transaction cost in Africa due to problems such as poor infrastructure and weak market integration, and emphasized the need to address these problems for promoting intra-Africa trade.
Taking into consideration that the strengthening of the public and private partnership is vital for Africa’s private sector development, it was confirmed that, building on the “TICAD-NEPAD Joint Policy Framework for the Promotion of Trade and Investment between Africa and Asia,” both the Japanese and NEPAD sides as well as the Africa Business Roundtable and the NEPAD Business Group, would cooperate with each other through fora such as the fourth Africa Asia Business Forum (AABF IV) currently scheduled to be held in Japan in September 2006.
Both sides shared the view that engagement in all three phases of “produce,” “sell” and “buy” is vital to develop Africa’s private sector. To this end, the NEPAD side welcomed Japan’s Development Initiative announced in December 2005 by Prime Minister Koizumi just before the Sixth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Hong Kong and its follow-up measures including such as the promotion of the “One Village, One Product” movement in Africa.
The Japanese and NEPAD sides reviewed each other’s policies in this area and reaffirmed that areas covered by Japanese assistance on human resource development areis in line with the needs specified by the NEPAD secretariat.
Both sides agreed on four technical cooperation projects as candidate projects for collaboration in NEPAD, namely:
Both sides welcomed the fact that Strengthening of Mathematics and Science in Secondary Education in Western, Eastern, Central and Southern Africa (SMASSE-WECSA), which started as a Japanese technical cooperation project, has shown steady progress and became one of the major programmes of NEPAD, involving 29 countries continent-wide.
The NEPAD side pointed out the importance of the enhancement of the research and analysis capacity of Africa’s policy implementing institutions, such as central and local government agencies, in order to fulfill the requirement to proceed with sound development policy implementation. It also showed expressed its expectation foron the expansion of JICA’s long-term training programme at the graduate level education to address the issue. The Japanese side replied that it would consider possible measures, but also pointed out a constraint of physical capacity of the host institution.
Both sides shared the same recognition that this dialogue was mutually beneficial to strengthen their cooperative relations; thus agreeingd to further coordinate and to hold regular policy dialogue meetings in the future.