Policy Recommendations for the Third Tokyo International Conference on African
Development (TICAD III)
Toward further development of the TICAD process

The Japan Institute of International Affairs
PREFACEThe world is now several years into the twenty-first century. However, Africa remains aplace faced with many difficulties, from violent conflicts to poverty and disease. A
cursory examination of Africa today shows that the majority of the people in this region
are not able to raise their incomes, and that the number of Africans living in poverty
continues to increase, despite the fact that their countries receive considerable aid fromthe international community.
Since the end of the Cold War many donor nations have begun placing
conditionality on their aid, prodding African states to transform their systems in orderto bring about political and economic reforms. These moves did have certain positiveeffects: economic liberalization moved ahead in the recipient states, and multiparty
elections were held across the continent. They did not, however, help Africa to achieve
any sort of sustainable improvement in terms of economic growth, poverty reduction,and other societal indices. In the political realm, the concentration of power in the handsof a few remains widespread despite the introduction of democratic systems, and there
is little to check the unbridled use of that power. Even elected presidents govern theircountries through the patron-client relationships that marked older forms of rule.
Conflict has been a common occurrence in Africa, and this has destroyed thefoundations needed for development there. Little progress has been made on thefundamental problems of how to structure states ruled by law and achieve economic
growth since the nations of Africa gained their independence. For these countries theoutbreak and spread of violence that rips apart the peace and stability they need todevelop are extraordinarily serious problems.
It is plain to see that Africa falls short in many areas: transparency inadministration and the formulation of policy, leaders’ accountability to the people, andthe very legitimacy of those leaders’ rule. Under the present conditions it is impossible
to ensure that the resources of the continent are distributed in a productive manner, orthat economic and social policies are implemented in consistent ways. This has led to a
vicious cycle in which African economies continuously decline.
Dealing with these problems in Africa—the conflicts and the developmental

1issues—is one of the major tasks before the international community today. The
Japanese government believes that the world will enjoy no stability or prosperity in thetwenty-first century unless Africa’s problems are dealt with, and based on this belief
has provided continuous support to the nations of Africa. Since 1993 the Tokyo
International Conference on African Development (TICAD) process has been a central
part of Japan’s African policy.
Now, in the year 2003, the nations of Africa are gaining increasing ownershipof the processes of reform and aid with the advancement of NEPAD, the New
Partnership for Africa’s Development, and the establishment of the African Union. The
global community’s interest in African issues is also on the rise, as seen by the Africa
Action Plan of the Group of Eight nations and the discussions carried out at various
United Nations gatherings, including the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development and the 2003 G8 Summit held in Evian. In response to this growinginternational concern and increasing African ownership, Japan is planning to host
TICAD III at the end of September 2003 to help and to further polish the philosophy ofpartnership underlying these efforts.
In considering the conditions affecting Africa today and drafting these policy
recommendations, the Japan Institute of International Affairs carried out candid
discussions in panel format. These discussions, rooted in recognition of the present stateof African nations, covered the key themes that will form the basis of the TICAD III
proceedings, and involved the officials who have moved the TICAD process forward sofar, representatives of such international organs as the UN Development Program, andother people with profound knowledge of African issues. This committee met
frequently—seven times over a period of two months—and its members exchanged
opinions with great vigor. Also participating in these meetings as observers were many
presently active officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Japan
International Cooperation Agency. While these observers did not take part in drafting
this document, their insightful observations and viewpoints proved extremely valuable
in helping to focus the debate and making this proposal a more meaningful documentin the end.
These recommendations have been drafted on the basis of the personal opinionsof the following committee members, and do not represent the official views held by
their respective organizations.

2TICAD III Research Group

Chair:
Hideo Oda, President, Keiai University
Members:
Kazuyoshi Aoki, Professor, Nihon University
Mitsugi Endo, Associate Professor, University of Tokyo
Makoto Katsumata, Professor, Meiji Gakuin University
Yasushi Kurokochi, Vice President, African Society of Japan
Shinsuke Horiuchi, Adjunct Research Fellow, JIIA
Katsuya Mochizuki, Senior Research Fellow, JETRO Institute of Developing
Economies
Akiko Yuge, Director, UNDP Tokyo OfficeMember and Coordinator:
Sadaharu Kataoka, Research Fellow, JIIA
Observers:
Norio Maruyama, Director, First Africa Division, MOFA
Toshitsugu Uesawa, Director, Second Africa Division, MOFA
Masahiro Banba, Regional Coordinator, First Africa Division, MOFA
Tadayuki Miyashita, Deputy Director, Second Africa Division, MOFA
Hideaki Harada, Senior Assistant Director, Second Africa Division, MOFA
Shiro Nabeya, Director, Africa Division, JICA

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GENERAL OVERVIEW(1) African Development: An Issue to Be Faced by All Humanity
In January 2001 Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, during his first official visit to three
African nations, delivered a bold message to the world: “There will be no stability orprosperity in the world in the twenty-first century unless the problems of Africa areresolved.” The Genoa Plan for Africa, released at the G8 Summit held in Italy in
September that year, expressed a similar sentiment: “Peace, stability, and theeradication of poverty in Africa are among the most important challenges we face in the
new millennium.”
Earlier, in September 2000, New York was the scene of the UN Millennium
Summit, where 189 nations adopted the Millennium Declaration as a set of goals forinternational society to pursue in the twenty-first century. This declaration, together
with a number of international development initiatives reached at global gatherings
during the 1990s, formed the framework for the Millennium Development Goals alsoestablished at the summit. The MDGs touch on the seriousness of the problems facing
African people today, and point to the importance of development on that continent asa means of overcoming them.
The problems besetting Africa today—including low levels of development,poverty, conflict, refugees, and AIDS and other infectious diseases—are not issues
affecting only that region. Seeking solutions to these issues is a key task for the global
community as a whole; international recognition is growing of the fact that this isneeded for the sake of humanity itself.
(2) Partnership and the Creation of NEPAD
As if in response to these moves in the international community, Africans themselves
have begun showing to the world a positive stance toward self-help aimed at solving
the problems Africa faces. The thirty-seventh summit of the Organization of African
Unity, held in July 2001, saw the establishment of the New African Initiative, acomprehensive strategy for African revitalization that aimed to halt the marginalizationof the continent in world affairs, reduce poverty, promote sustainable growth anddevelopment, and integrate Africa into the global economy. In October that year the
NAI was expanded and renamed NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development.
The above-mentioned Genoa Plan for Africa and the more concrete G8 Africa
Action Plan, adopted at the June 2002 G8 Summit held in Kananaskis, Canada, arecentral strategies for cooperative efforts in concert with NEPAD. The debate on African
issues seen at the June 2003 Evian Summit can also be viewed as an extension of thisapproach to the problems facing the continent.

4(3) The TICAD Initiative and African Development in the Twenty-first Century
The TICAD initiative, launched by Japan in 1993, has contributed greatly to the creationof a framework for the recognition of African problems and steps to deal with them byboth Africa itself and the international community as a whole befitting the twenty-first
century. The concepts of ownership and partnership, defined as fundamentals
underlying NEPAD, were key themes hammered out at TICAD I, the first conference,
held in October 1993.
(4) Hopes for TICAD III: From the Foreign Policy and Development Perspectives
The TICAD initiative is described as having two sides in terms of Japanese policy:
foreign policy and development policy, including both economic cooperation and aid.
During the 1990s, following the end of the Cold War, many nations in the developedWest began distancing themselves from the issues of Africa and its development. The
TICAD initiative refocused international attention on the continent, contributing greatly
to the global understanding that finding solutions for African problems will be a central
task for all of humanity in the twenty-first century. This initiative has made a strong
impression on the nations of Africa and earned high praise, making it an undeniablesuccess in terms of Japan’s foreign policy.
The next task before us is how to bring a more detailed approach to ourdevelopment cooperation efforts so that they result in further accumulation of resultson the development policy front.
(5) Seeking to Propose New Directions for Policy
The Japan Institute of International Affairs, in an effort to make an intellectual
contribution to TICAD III, formed the research group whose members are listed above
and carried out highly focused exchanges of views over a short period of time. This
proposal represents the essence gleaned from those deliberations. Experienced officials
from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the United Nations Development Program andother international organs, African researchers from universities and research organs,and others came together in this group, whose proposal looks carefully at the various
central issues relating to the question of African development. It is the culmination of
discussions aimed at formulating underlying directions for policy, and for this reason
we feel it will fulfill our goal of making an intellectual contribution to the TICAD III
process.

5

RECOMMENDATION OVERVIEW: TEN AREAS OF FOCUS
I. The Importance of Human Security• “Human security” is a concept focusing on the life, livelihood, and dignity of
individual humans. Aiming for the realization of human security in Africa is the mostimportant ideal informing the entire TICAD process. We believe that Japan should
clearly present human security, both domestically and internationally, as a noble,
fundamental philosophy underpinning its African policy.
• From the perspective of human security, Japan should stress the importance ofbringing stability and peaceful coexistence to and building mutual trust among people
living in African communities.
• In 1998 the late Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi announced in a speech in Hanoi that theconcept of human security would be clearly positioned within the guiding principles ofJapan’s foreign policy; he also called for the establishment of a Trust Fund for Human
Security. As one of the first nations to raise the banner of human security in this manner,
Japan should seek through the TICAD process to stress the importance of achieving
human security in Africa and to invite the international community’s commitment tothis fund.
• Efforts to realize human security should draw heavily on the energies of the private
sector. There are limits to what can be accomplished by public efforts alone when
dealing with the problems of poverty and violence in Africa.
• Japan should consider training people who can evaluate and confirm whether humansecurity is being achieved and installing these people as “human security officers” inJapanese diplomatic establishments.
II. Support for NEPAD• TICAD is not a development fund and therefore it will not support NEPAD
financially by providing part of the $64 billion that NEPAD hopes to raise each year. It
should instead provide active support for the process of NEPAD.
• African countries must find ways to clearly express their commitment to NEPAD as asign of their ownership of the process, and both African nations and donor countries
need to express their commitment to underscore the partnership involved. It is also
worth considering how to launch a review mechanism as part of this process.
• To make the partnership between African nations and the international community
deeper and broader (such as by expanding cooperation between Asia and Africa) Japan
must now show leadership and formulate an initiative along the lines of the New
Development Strategy approved by the Organization for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment in 1996.
III. Governance• With an eye to improving governance in African nations, a range of support must be

6

directed toward the creation of forms of government where legislative, administrative,
and judicial powers are separated.
• Support should be given to strengthening legislative functions. This support includes
training programs to foster legislators and clerical staff with specialized skills andknowledge.
• Training systems should also be created to produce able administrators.
• Various projects should be arranged and carried out in concert with nongovernmentalorganizations operating in Africa to boost people’s consciousness of their roles ascitizens of African states.
• A number of support measures are needed to ensure the fairness of elections. These
include support for election processes and stronger observation systems.
IV. Poverty Reduction• The poverty problems faced by African nations are extremely complex. We must
recognize that the introduction of market economic principles called for by the so-called
Washington Consensus will not be enough to solve these issues.
• Support should be targeted at helping African nations move beyond their colonial
economic models and excessive reliance on primary product exports.
• The key to reducing poverty in Africa is agricultural reform and the revitalization ofrural communities as a whole.
• Support must be given to the efforts planned and implemented by farmers themselves.
We must find ways to foster the self-reliance of farmers and rural communities.
• Comprehensive development programs must be carried out in rural areas to eradicate
poverty in farming communities. We should also assist African nations in their efforts
to advance agricultural promotion policies.
V. Consolidation of Peace• The majority of conflicts in Africa today involve weakened or failed states, and theinadequacy or absence of government there is often a major cause of the conflicts.
Increasing the legitimacy of African governments will therefore be one effective way toresolve conflicts on the continent.
• One theme of TICAD III should be calls for support for DDR—the disarmament,
demobilization, and reintegration of combatants, steps that form the basis for the
consolidation of peace. A focus is needed on the importance of providing financial andhuman resources to the NGOs working in the area of DDR.
• Further efforts are needed to strengthen crackdowns on the illicit trade in and use of
precious resources in Africa.
• Through TICAD III, the international community must be confronted with theimportance of aid aimed at strengthening and promoting regional cooperation between
African nations, moves toward regional unification, and relationships ofinterdependence on a subregional level. In particular, the African Union Security

7

Council and other bodies within the AU need to be bolstered. Another important target
for international support is the initiatives aimed at boosting African nations’ ability toprevent and resolve conflict and to maintain peace.
VI. The HIV/AIDS Problem• In 2000 Japan established the Okinawa Infectious Diseases Initiative as part of aframework for bilateral efforts. This initiative has resulted in some effective
countermeasures for HIV and AIDS; these results should be reflected in the TICAD III
discussions. In this way Japan can display to the world its early implementation of an
initiative dealing with these deadly diseases.
• While maintaining leadership in measures to combat HIV/AIDS and othercommunicable diseases, Japan should also make clear moves toward strengthening the
support it gives within the framework of these bilateral ties. Japan should also refrainfrom taking part in the “pledging contest” that can be seen around the world today,with nations competing to see who makes the most fiscal commitments, and focus
attention instead on the simple, grass-roots medical aid and other steps that are now
being made possible by South-South cooperation (success stories from Thailand among
other places can be used to illustrate this).
• The issue of HIV/AIDS is an especially serious one, and it deserves special attention.
It should be approached separately from other communicable diseases and treated as a
key problem in the field of human security, which is now being positioned as a central
theme in Japanese Official Development Assistance policy.
VII. Civil Society• The concept of “civil society” is a particularly vague one, and it has been used inmany ways in the past. However, Japan has arrived at a stage when this term should bepositioned in a clear manner within the philosophy underpinning its aid programs.
• There are a large number of NGOs operating in Africa today, but many of thesegroups have problems. If Japan is to make civil society a more central theme in its aid
efforts it will have to develop the ability to gauge the effectiveness of NGOs, selecting
those that can serve as partners in the development of Africa.
• Japan should promote the creation of a framework for cooperation and joint action
between NGOs in Africa and Asia as part of broader cooperation between the tworegions.
• NGOs should be brought into the TICAD process and allowed to participate ascooperative partners.
VIII. The Role of the UNDP
• The Millennium Development Goals, established as a common framework for theinternational community, share the goals of the TICAD process in many areas.
• TICAD III represents a perfect opportunity for discussion of what roles the TICAD

8

process, with its core themes of ownership and partnership, can play in helping toachieve the MDGs.
• The UNDP should seek to publicize TICAD and African development issues moreenergetically, both domestically and internationally.
• It should also seek to harmonize and make needed adjustments to its TICAD-related
operations within the UN system.
IX. Structure and Organization of Japan’s African Policy• As a nation that built itself up from a developing economy to an advanced industrial
power, and also as a country that never held any African colonies, Japan needs toimplement an African policy that goes beyond the strictures of the Washington
Consensus, which basically serves to uphold the vested interests of Western nations inthat region. Japan should make use of TICAD III as a forum for presenting its own
independent approach to African issues.
• Broad national efforts are needed to advance TICAD as a Japanese initiative. To thisend it should see involvement from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of
Economy, Trade, and Industry in addition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
• Nations like France, the United Kingdom, and the United States assign Africa
specialists to their diplomatic establishments in African nations, where they handle
affairs of state and economic cooperation. Japan, too, should revise its system of
seconding officials from various ministries to embassies and consulates with a view toselecting officers with profound knowledge of and training in African issues. Similarrevision should be carried out in the Foreign Ministry’s internal system of dispatchingbureaucrats from the ministry’s Economic Cooperation Bureau.
• Other steps to consider include establishing a system of senior specialist
researchers—university professors and associate professors and other researchers
well-versed in African conflict and development problems who would be dispatched toJapanese diplomatic establishments or African organizations. Such researchers could
also be assigned to duty in the Foreign Ministry, for example as councilors for African
affairs.
• It is also worth considering the dispatch of Foreign Ministry personnel, think tankresearchers, academics, specialists, NGO representatives, and other key members ofcivil society to various organs, such as the African Union, the Economic Community ofWest African States, the Southern African Development Community, and theIntergovernmental Authority on Development.
X. Driving the TICAD Process Forward• Ten years have passed since the first TICAD meeting, held in 1993, and the TICAD
name has become known around the globe. There are still many people in Japan and inother nations, though, who have not heard of this process. A decade into the process,the need is stronger than ever today to publicize TICAD within Japan, in Africa, and9throughout the world.
• Japan today needs to undertake energetic public relations activities related to theprojects it has put in effect on its own or in cooperation with other nations as part of the
TICAD process.
• Another key task for Japan is the establishment of a solid system for driving the
TICAD process forward. Toward this end the vertical barriers keeping Japaneseadministrative organs from working together must be reduced as much as possible. As
one way to accomplish this, the Foreign Ministry should consider creating an African
Aid Coordination Bureau to administer all support measures for Africa and to advance
TICAD operations.

10I. THE IMPORTANCE OF HUMAN SECURITY(1) Clearly Stated Ideals“Human security” is a concept that places emphasis on protecting the lives, livelihoods,
and dignity of individual human beings. The TICAD process has as one of its mostcentral ideals the need to realize human security in Africa. Japan needs to call for
support aimed at bringing stability and peaceful coexistence to the lives of people living
in African communities and building mutual trust among them.
Japan is a nation that seeks to go beyond narrowly defined national interests andachieve broad international harmony. The nation has a strong desire to contribute to therealization of a global society where, as is written in the preamble of the JapaneseConstitution, “all peoples of the world” can “live in peace, free from fear and want.” As
a forerunner in the area of human security, Japan must work both domestically andglobally to set forth this noble philosophy underlying its African policy.
In his 1998 speech in Hanoi, the late Prime Minister Obuchi clearly positioned
human security as a guiding philosophy for Japanese foreign policy. It was also in thisspeech that he called for the establishment of a Trust Fund for Human Security. Japan
must follow up on this initiative it has taken by being one of the first nations to include
this relatively new concept of human security in its policy thinking, emphasizing theneed to achieve human security in Africa and using the TICAD process to urge theglobal community to commit themselves to the human security fund.
(2) Building Closer Ties Among Japanese Agencies in Africa
In order to achieve human security it will be necessary to rely heavily on the private
sector. Conflict and poverty in Africa cannot be overcome by governmental efforts
alone. Private business ventures to create sustained employment for African workers
will be a must. Nevertheless, Japan’s aid framework for Africa today features noeffective connection between the promotion of private business efforts and the support
for public works provided through Japan’s Official Development Assistance program.
Japanese agencies in Africa have clearly separated areas of responsibility. Officesof the Japan International Cooperation Agency handle social development projects thatare not designed with an eye to business efficiency or meant to be profitable ventures;
meanwhile, the Japan External Trade Organization operates out of different offices,surveying private-sector trade and investment and offering business advice. In African
nations where both of these agencies have offices, they should be consolidated, allowing
the staff of both agencies to exchange information and produce new wisdom on ways totie private business to social development. This consolidation and these improved ties
between the groups will cut costs, which will lead to stronger support from Japanese
taxpayers for the programs. The NERICA, or New Rice for Africa, plan is an illustrative
example. While anyone could take on the task of producing this new strain of ricecombining African hardiness with Asian crop yields, it is not so easy to get this new rice11

into markets across Africa and get the message to consumers that it is cheap, safe, anddelicious. Here skilled marketing will be the key to ensuring continued success for the
NERICA project.
(3) Stationing Human Security Officers in Africa
Africa needs people who can evaluate the human security conditions there and confirm
that progress is being made on that front. Japan should consider training people who
can handle these tasks and station them as “human security officers” in Japanesediplomatic establishments. In many cases human security issues are exacerbated whena country’s administrative structures are extremely weak or completely collapsed,making it impossible to gain helpful information by making inquiries of thegovernment there. The human security officers will need to have strong communication
skills for liaising directly with the members of African communities; they will also need
to be well-versed in basic information on human rights and societal development.
(4) Making Use of African Specialists
There are clear limits to what the Japanese alone can do in terms of gauging andcertifying human security conditions in Africa, making suggestions in this area, and soforth. Ideally Japan will actively draw on the experience of members of local NGOs anddeeply networked consulting firms active in the region. It should also be possible tooutsource the training of Japanese specialists to serve as human security officers. It is
worth pointing out that utilizing local bodies in this way will also boost employment.

12II. SUPPORT FOR NEPAD(1) The NEPAD Spirit
African nations today continue to suffer from low levels of development, stagnant
growth, and marginalization on the world stage. African leaders are desperate toreverse these trends, and one pact symbolizing their efforts to bring about change is the
New Partnership for Africa’s Development, or NEPAD. The core goals of NEPAD arevery simple: to confirm an agreement between the nations of Africa that they will use
their collective strength to bolster good governance in both political and economic
contexts, and on the strength of this agreement to attract large flows of capital fromprivate and public sources around the world. NEPAD is also playing a valuable supportrole for public policy in the field of sustainable development, as can be seen in thespecific example of the peer-review mechanism that the African states have
implemented.
The spirit that has infused the TICAD process since its 1993 inception is the spiritof NEPAD today. Many of NEPAD’s goals overlap with those expressed in the Tokyo
Agenda for Action adopted at TICAD II in 1998. The TICAD process should not,however, be viewed as simply a channel providing a portion of the $64 billion that
NEPAD hopes to attract annually from the global community; TICAD should instead be
positioned as an active supporter for the NEPAD process. In other words, TICAD
support for NEPAD should be geared toward making sure the spirit of this undertaking
is realized.
NEPAD seeks to forge a new partnership between the nations of Africa and theworld community and to form stronger relations between nations on the basis of thatpartnership. The TICAD process, too, is based on this same concept of partnership.
Japan was among the first nations to put this idea of an African-global partnership towork through TICAD. While the TICAD process is a Japanese initiative, however, in thename of partnership it is officially implemented as a co-organized event with the Global
Coalition for Africa and various United Nations organs. This year marks the tenthanniversary of TICAD I, and since 1993 this process has become known around theworld, making it a success for Japanese diplomacy.
Japan should be proud of this recognition and confident in the success of the
TICAD process, and take similar initiative in supporting NEPAD. NEPAD represents a
new form of partnership between the nations of Africa and the global community.
Japan can adopt a different stance within this partnership from the United States or theEuropean nations that used to rule over parts of Africa as colonial masters. It should
therefore find ways to play an independent role within the framework of support for
NEPAD’s efforts. There is a complex array of partnerships to construct: partnerships
between African nations and their former suzerains, between African nations
themselves, between the African Union and the rest of the world, between subregionalorganizations in Africa and the international community, between African political13

leaders and the people they represent, between Asian and African nations, andpartnerships involving international organizations like UNESCO, UNICEF, and theInternational Francophone Organization, which wields considerable influence in the
French-speaking nations of Africa. Japan should take the diplomatic lead and use the
TICAD process to help promote these various partnerships. Japan must again show thekind of leadership and initiative that it displayed in 1996 when it helped to shape theOECD’s New Development Strategy. Supporting NEPAD will be an ideal way for Japanto bring further breadth and depth to Asia-Africa cooperation, already a strong area forthe nation.
In more specific terms, Japan must go beyond its traditional approach toeconomic cooperation, which has been limited to bilateral or multilateral aid. We mustnext adopt a subregional perspective, directing aid to the provision of basic
infrastructure and other measures aimed at broader areas.
The TICAD process is a Japanese initiative whose object is the entire African
continent. As part of this process we should give consideration to Morocco, which is not
an AU member nation and which falls outside the NEPAD framework.
(2) Ownership and Partnership
The concepts of ownership and partnership are clearly defined as underlying themes
for NEPAD as well as TICAD. These concepts have become more prominent as more
attention has come to be focused on the role that the developing party itself plays in thedevelopment activities. In the field of development aid in particular, the spotlight has
focused on ensuring that the administrations and people of the areas receiving aid takesome control of the process. On the recipient side, local governments and residents are
becoming increasingly aware of their ownership of the aid measures, and are more
actively involving themselves, taking on an appropriate share of the burden of
implementation. On the donor side, focus is being placed on fulfilling responsibilities asa partner to the recipients. Both of these approaches serve to bring the two sides closer
together.
It was at TICAD I in 1993 that the concepts of ownership and partnership werepositioned as central to development. These concepts have proved timely indeed, andnations and international organizations have warmed to them quickly, no doubt
because they provide both donors and recipients with a rational framework forapproaching aid issues. Formal “agreements” between national governments are notnecessarily international contracts involving real rights and duties; the loose nature ofthese commitments is another factor making each nation eager to apply the ideals ofpartnership and ownership to its dealings. At the same time a backlash against theStructural Adjustment Program in which the International Monetary Fund placed
conditions on recipient nations, as well as the realization that this conditionality did notalways produce the desired results, combined to make these concepts even more
attractive.

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We must admit, however, that the lack of a strictly defined division of roles inthese new donor-recipient relationships has made the TICAD initiative itself asomewhat vague thing. With the benefit of hindsight it is clear to see that since TICAD
was not positioned as a “pledging meeting,” or a gathering where donor nations madefinancial commitments, the participating African governments were less able to clearlyrecognize the tasks before them, and they failed to take on any obligations as a result.
Part of the reason we have not seen speedy results from the Tokyo Agenda for Action
adopted at TICAD II can be attributed to this lack of clarity.
It goes without saying that ownership is an essential feature of African
development. The governments of African nations must make clear commitments
regarding the obligations they take on in the development process—to their peoples
first of all, but also to the governments and organs that support the aid measures. It is ofvital importance to obtain clear commitments under NEPAD defining which African
governments will do what within what timeframe. If these governments do not makethese commitments on their development goals and the methods that are to be used toreach them, TICAD III cannot be expected to succeed.
Nor can partnership be viewed in a simplistic manner. It cannot be achieved
merely by setting up “development partners,” or donors, in an appropriatearrangement and reaching some form of consensus among them. The resources brought
to bear on development problems must be clearly defined, both in terms of what they
comprise and how they are to be distributed. In addition, agreements must be reachedwith African governments on the roles they will take on over both the short term andthe longer term of the development process. A key duty of the partners is to carry out
reviews of the process based on this understanding of their roles. NEPAD is an
initiative launched by the governments of the nations of Africa; TICAD should function
as a mechanism for reconfirming the partnerships that are formed on the basis of thisinitiative. Peer review carried out by the African countries themselves will not beenough to ensure NEPAD’s success; we hope that TICAD III will see a proposal for
donor reviews to complement the African Peer Review Mechanism.

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III. GOVERNANCE(1) Areas of Focus
A. Establishing systems where legislative, administrative, and judicial powers are
separated
B. Strengthening legislatures
C. Improving administrative apparatuses
D. Boosting and improving people’s civic consciousness
E. Making the press freer and stronger
F. Ensuring fair elections(2) Concrete Measures
Aid aimed at the above areas of focus can be broadly divided into “hard” support toprovide facilities, machinery, and the like and “soft” support to train personnel andimprove their skills. It will be especially important to focus our energy on this “soft”
support. This will, of course, include the creation and operation of training systems.
These systems can be designed in concert with regional organizations; they may involve
several nations and be implemented through the curricula of universities in the region.
The Japanese government must also continue and further flesh out the short-term
seminars handled through JICA; it may also need to create new short- andmedium-term study programs to be offered at universities in Japan.
Improving the civic consciousness of African people should be promoted throughcoordination with NGOs and other entities operating locally. This arrangement will
enable across-the-board aid activities from the government to the grass-roots level.
Efforts to make elections free and fair should center not on the conventional election
observer activities seen in the past, but on longer-term, more systemic efforts.
The following charts outline the steps to be taken and the expected results foreach area of focus.

16

Establishing separation of government powers
Specific measures

Goals and expected results• Aid to strengthen legislative functions• Preventing excessive concentration of
authority and maintaining balance ingovernment systems• Increasing the transparency andaccountability of politics• Improving government’s
policy-making ability• Boosting citizens’ desire to participate
in politics—

Producing legislators and clericalstaff with specialized skills andknowledge (to include new training
systems at African universities, anincreased number of improved JICA
seminars, midterm training systems
in Japan’s universities and otherprivate organizations, symposiums
and workshops to strengthen
legislative systems, and cooperation
with African regional organs tocomplement and review these
programs)—

Systematizing and strengthening
programs for dispatching specialists—

Bolstering and increasing thenumber of “human resource
development projects”—

Supporting construction of facilities
needed for collecting and analyzing
information• Aid to reform judicial systems—

Reinforcing organizations within
judicial systems—

Strengthening the functions of
judicial systems (specifically, byimplementing the sort of training
systems used to strengthen
legislative functions as describedabove)—

Introducing judicial ombudsman
systems• Bringing about the universal rule of law• Establishing a system of checks andbalances• Doing away with political corruption
and the patron-client system ofgovernment17

Making legislative systems stronger and more resilient
Specific measures• Establishing systems allowing
legislators to access information• Providing and systematizing organs
and technologies to support legislators’
law-making activities

Goals and expected results• Ensuring the independence of thelegislature from the executive branch• Increasing legislators’ law-drafting
abilities

Improving and reforming administrative apparatuses
Specific measures• Creating systems to train humanresources• Bolstering systems for administrative
and accounting oversight• Increasing administrative transparency
and accountability and improving
information disclosure

Goals and expected results• Boosting the efficiency andeffectiveness of administrative activities• Clarifying the limits of authority andpreventing the ballooning ofadministrative powers• Implementing policies more efficiently
and gaining a measure of trust for politics

Boosting and improving people’s civic consciousness
Specific measures• Planning and implementing projects
jointly with NGOs and other groups toboost civic consciousness

Goals and expected results• Laying the groundwork for democratic
politics and good governance• Getting rid of patron-client
relationships in government

Making the press freer and stronger
Specific measures• Training media personnel

Goals and expected results• Making citizens more willing to takepart in the political process• Making more information publicly
available and helping democracy become
firmly established

Ensuring fair elections
Specific measures• Supporting elections and strengthening
election observation

Goals and expected results• Carrying out free, fair elections• Increasing the number of citizens who
participate in politics

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IV. POVERTY REDUCTION(1) NEPAD’s Central Concern
Poverty reduction is the central concern of the New Partnership for Africa’s
Development. Despite all the loud cries for redressing the problem ever since the daysof independence, poverty has spread yet more widely around Africa. This leads to thewaste of human resources from the economic and social perspectives and, in areas ofsocial security including crime, disease, and internment facilities, it imposes higheconomic and social costs. To disregard those without even the minimum necessarylevels of nourishment, health and medical care, water, and housing would be a matterof grave concern from the viewpoint of human rights.
(2) Causes of the African Poverty Problem
Poverty is not just a matter of a low level of income and an insufficiency of material
supplies. The meaning of poverty extends widely to the concepts of isolation, alienation,
dependence, limited social and political participation, meager assets, vulnerability toexternal shocks, and exposure to discrimination and violence. Broadly viewed, poverty
is brought about by economic, social, and political causes all acting together.
Historically, it results from a complicated web of factors with roots in precolonial
traditions, the legacy of the colonial era, and the policies applied since independence inthe political, economic, and social arenas. In this way, the causes of African poverty areexceedingly complex. Even when these causes are viewed separately, we can plainly seethat the basic human rights of the impoverished are not being safeguarded. Poverty forthis reason needs to be perceived as an issue involving human rights.
There is a tendency in NEPAD to focus only on low income levels in discussionsof poverty. As an organization that has drawn attention to the complexity of Africa’s
problems, NEPAD needs to bear in mind that poverty, too, has deep-reaching roots.
Given that it is difficult to address poverty even as a simple economic problem, can wereally expect to adequately address it comprehensively, including its social andhistorical aspects, with the policy prescription favored by the Washington
Consensus—introducing a market economy?
(3) Reducing Poverty Through Economic Growth
Probably nobody would seriously object to the principle that poverty should be
reduced by achieving economic growth—the policy stance Japan adopts. That being thecase, we are compelled to ask why it is that economic growth in Africa has remained
stagnant for such a long time. Is it reasonable to expect that African economies canachieve sustained, stable growth if only their countries make use of a proper policy mix,
including measures to make structural adjustments, attain macroeconomic stability,
build infrastructure, promote export industries, draw in foreign capital, and introduce
advanced technologies? To put this bluntly, is the situation in the countries of Africa

19more or less the same as the situation that Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, andother such countries were in prior to their economic development? If economic
management is appropriately conducted in line with the Washington Consensus, canwe expect to see the advent of African states enjoying a Korean or Taiwanese pace ofgrowth after the passage of a few decades?
(4) African Development Problems: Excessive Dependence on Primary ProductExports(A) Resource-intensive industry
Primary product prices followed a rising trend from the 1960s into the 1970s, and thiscontributed greatly to the growth of post-independence African economies. Prices
reversed direction around the time of the first oil crisis (1973–74), however, andthereafter Africa’s terms of trade moved only in an unfavorable direction. African
economies are heavily dependent on primary products, and commonly they havespecialized in the production and export of just one or two products. This has basicallynot changed since colonial times. Starting in the colonial age, Africa’s resource-intensive
industries were essentially incorporated into the economies of Europe and the UnitedStates, especially the former suzerain states. Africa offered a supply of inexpensive
resources, and much of the added value of African products was treated as profits on
capital invested. These profits contributed to capital accumulation in the economies of
the advanced countries. After processing, products were exported back to Africa, wheremultinational corporations of the West, which virtually monopolized local markets,
sold them at the highest prices the markets could bear. Needless to say, the profits fromthe sales went to these corporations.
(B) Lingering colonial-type economic systems
After gaining independence, African countries implemented policies to change theircolonial-type economic structures. They nationalized companies and fostered public
enterprises, and they adopted various regulations designed to protect the home market
and domestic industries. By and large, however, these policies ran aground on thepatron-client system rooted in African society. Economic liberalization has been
pursued since the late 1980s in the name of structural adjustment, and steps have beentaken to privatize corporations, deregulate, terminate agricultural subsidies, andremove protective barriers. Even so, African economies have not moved onto asustained growth track. Far from it, market opening has brought in floods ofinexpensive goods made in industrial nations and other developing nations, anddomestic industries have suffered severe damage.
The domestic market is often small, making it susceptible to domination by asingle multinational corporation. Relatively few companies are present even inindustries suited to small-scale manufacturing firms, and the business climate
encourages collusion rather than competition among rival businesses. To make matters20

worse, the removal of export controls on commodities such as coffee and tea has caused
export prices to drop, and small-scale producers have seen their incomes decline. Apartfrom such cases as South Africa and Botswana, African countries still have ties ofdependence so strong as to make them in effect a low-income sector of their former
colonial masters and other Western economies.
(C) The need to move beyond existing systems
Why are African countries not doing more in the way of processing the primary
products they produce before exporting them? It is true that they face constraints interms of technology, capital, and markets, but it can also be noted that the status quo is
being preserved by the policies of the developed countries and the corporate strategiesof the multinationals. The situation at present is one that also makes huge profits for thepolitical elite of African nations, and these people are not looking for change. If
self-sustaining development is the goal, these relations of dependence andsubordination must be severed by means of autonomous economic activity; plans must
be made to energize domestic economies and elevate productivity, and efforts must be
directed at diversifying production at the same time. In brief, we must recognize thatthe ills of African economies cannot be cured using the existing prescription of theneoclassical camp.
(5) Revitalizing Agriculture
In the African economy, poverty reduction is the starting point of self-sustaining
economic development, and the endeavor to achieve it must begin not in the
manufacturing sector controlled directly and indirectly by multinationals but inagricultural communities, where 70% of the impoverished population is to be found.
Agriculture has been slighted ever since the start of independence. It has been treated as
nothing more than a source of inexpensive foods for urban workers. The sector’s output
has failed to keep up with population growth, and this has turned the African continent,
which used to be an exporter of grains, into one where all countries but South Africa areimporting grains. With the problems of agricultural stagnation and food importation
being so apparent, why has not more been done to promote agriculture and to make it apriority target for investment? Even today, when the political elite is constantly
proclaiming that farming development is the cornerstone of economic development,
governments are channeling little investment into the sector, and rural communities inmost African countries are places of heart-wrenching destitution.
The indigence in the farming sector is most conspicuous on small farms and infamilies headed by women. Countries opting for structural adjustment policies are on
the increase, and they are removing state-run marketing agencies from their policy
frameworks and eliminating food subsidies in urban areas. Such steps have had a major
disruptive impact on agricultural production. People in the low-income stratum in cities
and the countryside have been directly affected, and their lives have been made difficult.

21

In view of this situation, now is the time to revive policies for the promotion ofagriculture.
(6) Constructive Utilization of Rural Communities
A comprehensive development program for rural society is needed for reducing
poverty in farming villages and other rural communities. Traditional communities in
the African countryside are on the whole still relatively healthy, although there arevariations among countries and regions. Making use of community initiatives,
leadership, and bonds of solidarity, African countries can revitalize and strengthen the
independence of rural communities even without spending large sums of money.
(7) The Spirit of Self-Reliance in Rural Communities
Farmers have a need for banks from which they can borrow operating funds on
reasonable terms. They use the funds at certain times of the year for purchasing seeds
and fertilizer and securing labor, and if ideal conditions prevail, they earn a reasonableprofit when they sell what they produce on the market. Farmers also need a supply ofmarket information. The strengthening of agencies that disseminate farming
information can lead to increased production for market sales since farmers do not farm
only to feed themselves, and it can also contribute to improvement of cultivated land,innovation in farming machinery, replenishment of livestock, and the introduction of
new cultivation techniques. Small-scale clinics, meanwhile, can improve the health ofrural families, which will increase the chances for children to finish primary andsecondary schooling.
If rural residents can hold hope for the future, even if they cannot anticipate these
sorts of ideal conditions, development will occur, and progress will be made toward the
reduction of poverty. Policies and systems capable of sustaining hope for the future are
required. What is needed is not guidance in farming techniques alone but a social
development program for the countryside overall. We must understand that
agricultural development and, in turn, poverty reduction, depend on overall
community development in rural areas.
The traditional community remains present in many African rural villages, andlocal leaders and community groups still have the organizational ability to initiate
activities. Top-down planning is not the way to undertake rural development, as thefailures of the 1960s and 1970s demonstrate. A more effective approach is to holdongoing dialogues with the community, draw up plans that make the most of local
initiatives, and give these initiatives support. The key lies in the way assistance isprovided. A policy of giving farmers whatever they ask for will not stimulate activities
that expand production and raise productivity; to apply this policy would be to play therole of the patron in the patron-client system. Support should instead be extended to theassorted activities that communities plan and begin to undertake on their own initiative.
Assistance must not be supply driven; it needs to be driven by demand.

22

V. CONSOLIDATION OF PEACE(1) Conflict Prevention and Settlement
Peace and security in Africa are indispensable conditions for the continent’s
development. The consolidation of peace is, accordingly, a key to the success of NEPAD
and the TICAD process. There are many basic causes of African conflicts, including
fragile states, lack of legitimate state authority, power struggles, weak leadership,
political differences among ethnic groups and tribes, intervention by foreign powers,
insufficient good governance, and unfair distribution of profits. For peace and security
to prevail in Africa, there must be both a commitment from the international
community and a firm resolve to settle conflicts among the countries of Africa
themselves.
It is precisely in this area of peace and security that major differences separate theAfrican Union from its predecessor, the Organization of African Unity. The AU is
determined to construct innovative and effective mechanisms for the prevention andsettlement of conflicts. At present the G8 is pursuing an initiative called the G8 Africa
Action Plan, which has moved beyond the stage of the so-called Berlin Process and is
focusing on upgrading African capabilities for peacekeeping operations and conflict
prevention and settlement. In the TICAD process as well, there is a need to bring up
peace and security issues again and propose measures for the consolidation of peace.
To achieve security, efforts must be made to prevent crises from occurring, and asystem for conflict resolution, one that has been reinforced by the international
community’s unswerving involvement, must be put into place. Crises are
manifestations of deep-seated negative factors in society and endogenous andexogenous tensions; frequently they occur because society lacks the means to ensurecohesion and peace among ethnic groups. Discussion on the political level turns violent
at such times, and friendly relations among neighboring states mutate into borderdisputes.
True conflict prevention requires a stable environment. Guided by the principle ofgood governance, the state must be careful to accord respect to public freedom, show
concern for public welfare and public goods, listen to the voices of the people, andmaintain equilibrium among the ethnic groups that make up the country. A gentle civilsociety will blossom if this path is taken, and the country will discover unity andcohesion. Economic development, which constitutes the first answer to averting
upheavals, will then become possible. The state must have the skills to instill respect for
the legal system, public order, and the judicial administration, and it must perform its
duty to the people.
(2) Specific Policy Measures
At TICAD III as well, we must adamantly assert the necessity of providing assistancefor the following purposes.

23

(A) Elevating the legitimacy of state authority
The actors in African conflicts are states. They are, moreover, often weakened and failed
states that do not have much legitimate power. The way these states govern is in itself
one of the major causes of disputes. Accordingly, elevating the legitimacy of stateauthority offers an effective means of resolving conflicts. Toward this end, a number of
improvements need to be made in political systems, ruling systems, and governance.
These include strengthening the institutions of democracy, securing the transparency of
government power, establishing political leadership with responsibility for the people
that shoulders this responsibility as it should, achieving accountability in the politicalprocess and in government (having the state and the government behave responsibly inaffairs of government), incorporating checks and balances in the authority structure,and strengthening public security institutions.
(B) Concrete international assistance for DDR
Disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR) of combatants areindispensable for building a sustainable peace, one that anchors peace firmly, in thewake of a conflict. The support of the international community is needed for DDR
implementation. More specifically, there must be financial and personnel support for
the NGOs working in the DDR field, monitoring of arms sales must be reinforced, andsupport must be provided for the return and reintegration of refugees and displaced
persons. Another cause of the strife in Africa is the tendency for participants in disputes
to unhesitatingly procure and employ weapons, making wrongful use of scarce
resources. For this reason, the international community must do everything it can to put
a stop to this sort of improper use of precious resources. In addition, a major
impediment to the preservation of peace in the wake of many conflicts is the presence ofantipersonnel mines strewn about the land. The international community needs also to
assist in the work of removing these mines.
(C) Promoting regional and subregional cooperation
In order to avert disputes among African states, there will undoubtedly be a need tostrengthen cooperation and integration on the regional level of the African Union andalso to build stronger ties of interdependence on the subregional level, such as the
Economic Community of West African States. More concretely, the states of Africa muststrive earnestly to forge good-neighbor agreements, build and strengthen AU
organizations (especially the AU Peace and Security Council), improve their ability toprevent and resolve conflicts, and establish an African peacekeeping force. International
assistance for these self-help efforts by African countries needs to be considered at
TICAD III.
The global community needs to extend appropriate aid based on a goodunderstanding of the regional and historical context of the African countries receiving

24the aid. All the parties concerned must work to coordinate this aid endeavor, and amessage to this effect needs to be delivered clearly at TICAD III.

25

VI. THE HIV/AIDS PROBLEM(1) Promotion of the Okinawa Infectious Diseases Initiative
At the G8 Kyushu-Okinawa Summit in 2000, Japan, as the host, launched the Okinawa
Infectious Diseases Initiative. Since then a number of international conferences on thetheme of infectious diseases have been held, including the April 2001 HIV/AIDS
summit of the OAU, held in Nigeria, and the June 2001 special session on HIV/AIDS at
the United Nations. In the Okinawa initiative, Japan has committed itself to extending$3 billion in cooperation over a five-year period. The aim of the initiative is to acquaintdeveloping countries with the experience and insights Japan gained after World War II
while combating tuberculosis with the help of a public health campaign and, in
Okinawa, successfully eradicating malaria and filariasis.
The world needs to know that this initiative, which employs a bilateralframework, was one of the key moves leading to the creation of the Global Fund toFight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, which has a multilateral framework. Japan
should direct attention to its accomplishments in this bilateral endeavor at TICAD III,and while seeking to exercise leadership and take the initiative with respect tocountermeasures for HIV/AIDS and other contagious diseases, it should clearly declare
its intention to increase its support for bilateral activities in the future. Needless to say,this assistance must be coordinated with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis,
and Malaria.
As a country in the vanguard of the battle against HIV/AIDS, Japan ought todistance itself from the growing enthusiasm for “pledging contests,” at whichgovernments try to outdo each other in declarations of fund commitments. It should
state the case for making use of South-South cooperation (citing the successes inThailand and elsewhere), and it should also draw attention to the low-profile medical
assistance being extended at the grass roots on the African scene.
(2) The Significance of HIV/AIDSThe HIV/AIDS problem needs to be separated from other infectious diseases. We needto view it as constituting an important component of “human security,” which is being
positioned as a pillar of Japan’s policy for official development assistance. Particularly
in discussions of the grave situation in southern Africa, where various scholarly studies
have been conducted, the prevailing view is that rating HIV/AIDS as “just anothercontagious disease” would be inadequate.
HIV/AIDS has implications extending well beyond the domain of infectious
diseases. Projections indicate that it will have a severe negative impact on economies in
the future, and the possibility has been pointed out that it will adversely affect the
progress toward democracy by causing unlooked-for, large-scale losses of such vital
human resources as politicians, government officials, and intellectuals. The HIV/AIDS
problem is thus a multifaceted one, and there is concern that it will act as a major

26

constraint on the undertakings attempted in Africa henceforth and the effects they areable to produce.
Japan needs to understand that there are real limits to increases of funding for the
AIDS problem alone within the framework of programs to deal with infectious diseases.
At the very least, Japan must make it clear that it appreciates the multifaceted nature of
the HIV/AIDS problem and strive to sustain the donations of funds at the multilaterallevel. As far as possible, it must support preventive education in the field of schooling,where programs are already in place, cooperate with the NGOs on the scene, and inother ways demonstrate its earnest desire to deal with the HIV/AIDS problem.

27

VII. CIVIL SOCIETY(1) Civil Society(A) The significance of civil society
The term civil society is a handy general name for nongovernmental organizations andother such groups, but it also has other meanings, and people who make use of it need
to be aware of them. In general, Western countries attach importance to freedom,democracy, and good governance in their policies, and they strive to nurture themthrough their aid programs. It is in this context that Westerners make use of the conceptof civil society, which they see as constituting a core element of democratization policy.
The term civil society to them gives concrete expression to one aspect of their aid
philosophy. When we consider how Japanese have been using the term shimin shakai(civil society), however, we must question whether they have intended it to convey thesame meaning. Quite often, it seems, they use shimin shakai in a more practical way as
just another term for NGOs, as a word designating a new partner for cooperation,
collaboration, and dialogue in aid programs. To be sure, there is no inherent problem inapplying such a meaning to shimin shakai, as long as it is understood that this is what theterm is meant to convey.
(B) Sizing up NGOs as partners
In the real world, NGOs operating in Japan and partner countries are acquiring a fairdegree of importance in the implementation of Japan’s aid policy, and as a generalconsideration, we need to clarify collaboration with these organizations. In relation to
the foregoing discussion, however, a matter of greater importance is the offering ofcoherent explanations of the decisions being made to collaborate with or give support tocertain NGOs in specific aid projects. A yardstick is needed for measuring NGOs todetermine their suitability as partners. As Japan accumulates experience working withthem, it will have to address this need.
(2) NGOs(A) The advance of NGOs since the start of TICAD
When we look back over the 10 years since the start of the TICAD process, we can seethat NGO participation in major international conferences has dramatically increased.
Both in the debates at conferences and in the follow-up process, the participation andcooperation of NGOs and the use made of their mobility have become so crucial that noreport on what the conferences have achieved or can hope to achieve is considered to becomplete without mention of this NGO input.
When the TICAD process started in 1993, NGO participation was not accorded aplace in the basic concept of the process (to be sure, the 1993 Tokyo Declaration did takenote of the role played by NGOs and other organizations of civil society and the need tocooperate with them). The consensus in the halls of the Japanese bureaucracy was that28

TICAD would be a gathering just of governments.
This attitude was to gradually change. Shortly before TICAD II took place in 1998,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, responding to appeals from a number of JapaneseNGOs, offered support to a parallel event in which African NGOs and others
participated. This international NGO symposium, which took place in Osaka, was titled“NGOs’ Visions and Proposals for African Development.” The results of thesymposium, which were reported to a plenary session of TICAD II, received high praisefrom the conference chair. This was an epochal step forward for these NGOs.
(B) ACT 2003 and TICAD III
In preparation for TICAD III, Japanese NGOs working in the field of African affairs
established ACT 2003 (Action Civile pour TICAD 2003), which is an NGO network
whose aim is to ensure that the concerns, knowledge, and experience of people activeon the grass-roots level are adequately reflected in the conference. In early August,prior to the start of the main conference at the end of September, ACT 2003 will leadanother international NGO symposium, again with the support of the Foreign Ministry
and this time in Tokyo. This symposium, to which representatives of African NGOs
have been invited, will take place within the framework of the TICAD process.
The Japanese government and the co-organizers of TICAD III are fully aware ofthis broad-based acknowledgement of NGOs. We can anticipate that the results of thisNGO symposium will be adequately taken into account in the main conference andmentioned in the chair’s summary.
(C) NGO involvement and specific proposals
Whether based in Japan or in Africa, NGOs are engaged in backbreaking endeavors inall the priority areas on the TICAD III agenda, and they are constantly testing andreworking new approaches. Based on analyses of the various factors that come intoview during this patient work, NGO representatives will put forward concrete
proposals on how policies can be made more effective and where more work is needed.
To achieve success, no doubt TICAD III will need to incorporate the best of these NGO
viewpoints, which are rooted in the African community.
• We ask for the understanding and support of public officials and others to make theinternational NGO symposium organized by ACT 2003 a success.
• NGO proposals are based on experiences in the field, and sometimes even the
responsible ministries of African governments are unable to appreciate their content. It
may therefore be helpful to have the details of the NGO reports compiled anddistributed as a reference material attached to the chair’s summary of TICAD III.
• NEPAD, which can be called a new breeze blowing from Africa, is being watchedwith much expectation, and consideration is being given to its eventual integration with
the AU. Whatever the case, African development has to be facilitated by the respective29

African countries, regional organizations, and NGOs. An effort should be made at
TICAD III to encourage NEPAD to draw NGOs into its activities.
• The AU is hoping to achieve balanced development among the five African regions,but this development, while assisted from above, must rely on assorted schemes
designed to give support to activities that arise spontaneously from among the common
people, particularly in poor areas, and NGOs are indispensable agents for making thishappen. TICAD should make an appeal for the introduction of policy measures thatenable NGOs to work yet more effectively in such projects.
• Having shrugged off the initial negative reaction to the TICAD process, Africa
appears to be gradually gaining interest in learning from the Asian development
experience and seizing the opportunity to move forward. In the NGO field of activities
as well, progress has been made in the private sector’s Asia-Africa cooperation. One canhear African voices requesting, for example, cooperation and exchange in microfinance(the supply of financial services handling small-scale loans and deposits for poor
people); in this area Africans are interested in Asian experiences, methods, and funds.
In response to this budding cooperation among Asian and African NGOs, whichconstitutes one of the successes of the TICAD process, TICAD III should seek to makelateral support available.
• While bearing in mind the occasional tendency among African countries to adopt a
domineering attitude toward domestic and external NGOs, the participants in TICAD
III should appeal for the fostering of NGO autonomy. Also bearing in mind theimportance of keeping in close contact with the ordinary people of Africa everywhere,
they should urge that NGOs be drawn in and put to work as development partners in
the planning, implementation, and follow-up evaluation of the various development
initiatives at TICAD III.

30

VIII. THE ROLE OF THE UNDP
(1) Africa and the Millennium Development Goals
The Millennium Development Goals were endorsed at the 2000 UN Millennium
Summit as a common agenda for the international community. The eight MDGs are to(1) eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, (2) achieve universal primary education, (3)promote gender equality and empower women, (4) reduce child mortality, (5) improvematernal health, (6) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, (7) ensure
environmental sustainability, and (8) create a global partnership for development. Oneor more targets have been set for each goal, most with a deadline of 2015. The United
Nations Development Program is in charge of coordinating the UN endeavor to achievethese goals, and in December 2001 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan designated UNDP
Administrator Mark Brown, in his capacity as chair of the UN Development Group, toserve as “campaign manager” and “scorekeeper” for the MDGs.
The UNDP titled its Human Development Report for 2003 “Millennium
Development Goals: A compact among nations to end human poverty.” This report,
which draws on the latest data, reviews the progress toward MDG achievement incountries around the world and analyzes the impediments to it. It vividly depicts theharsh realities of the situation in Africa in particular, where in the sub-Saharan region, if
the current pace of progress does not change, the poverty goal will not be attained until
2147 and the child-mortality goal until 2165. In terms of the targets for HIV/AIDS andhunger, the situation is actually getting worse instead of better.
The 2003 report reckons that there are 59 “priority countries” where many MDGs
will be impossible to achieve in the absence of emergency measures. Of these, 31
countries, 25 of which are in the sub-Saharan region, are classified as “top priority
countries” where income and other human development standards are extremely low
and where progress toward the goals has stalled or is moving in reverse. The other 28
countries, of which 13 are sub-Saharan, were accorded a “high priority” classification,
which means that while improvement in some fields is evident and the situation is notentirely dire, no progress is being made toward some of the most important goals as aresult of insufficient resources and inadequate policies.
TICAD III offers an excellent opportunity for discussing what the TICAD process,which espouses the twin principles of African ownership and global partnership, cando toward MDG attainment. TICAD has played a major role in the promotion of global
partnership for sustainable African development by alerting the world to theimportance of African development ever since the process got started in 1993. The
UNDP, which is one of TICAD’s co-organizers, has given high marks to what theprocess has accomplished over its 10-year history, and it intends to keep on making use
of TICAD in its support of African development.
(2) Five UNDP Roles in the TICAD Process

31

(A) Promoting the formulation of development strategy
Making use of the TICAD process, the UNDP will state the case for stepping up support
for NEPAD. The UNDP will also support the implementation of African-led action
programs for attaining the MDGs. While conveying necessary information, engaging inpolicy dialogue, and making proposals, it will work through TICAD to secureassistance for these programs from the international community.
(B) Promoting a global partnership for African development
As the coordinator of the global development network of the UN system, the UNDP
will work through TICAD to flesh out a partnership for African development in avariety of forms. This partnership needs to be broadened beyond the relations Japanand other developed countries have with African countries. It should include
cooperative relations among developing countries, notably those between Asia andAfrica, and it should also encompass the African development networks of other UN,
international, and regional organizations.
(C) Tailoring aid for Africa to meet local needs
The UNDP has permanent offices in 53 developing countries in Africa. There is muchthese country offices can accomplish by conducting follow-up activities for high-level
policy dialogue at TICAD III and in other places, while abiding by the principle of
African ownership at the local level.
(D) Promoting publicity activities for TICAD and African development
The UNDP is conducting publicity activities aimed at deepening recognition andunderstanding of TICAD III and African development needs within Japan and aroundthe world. After consulting with the other TICAD co-organizers, it issued acommunication strategy in October 2002 and solicited support broadly from other UN
organizations. Working hand in hand with the Japanese government and otherco-organizers, it has produced pamphlets, posters, and TV documentaries and posted
information on the World Wide Web. This year the UNDP has been chairing the United
Nations Communications Group, and at the second annual meeting of the group in June,it led a discussion on publicizing TICAD and African development. In addition, it
organized a visit to Ghana by UNDP Goodwill Ambassador Misako Konno, a Japanese
actress, in August, and it has plans for making news about Japanese assistance, TICAD,
and its own activities in Africa widely available through media reports.
(C) Cooperation and coordination for TICAD in the UN system
The UNDP acts as the secretary of the committee of TICAD co-organizers, using a
special unit in its headquarters for this purpose. In recent years numerous
TICAD-related activities have been carried out by UN organizations that, while notserving as co-organizers of the process, are nonetheless in favor of its objectives. The

32

UNDP warmly welcomes this sort of involvement. Making use of its UN resident
coordinator system and acting in the capacity of chair of the UN Development Group,
the UNDP strives to enhance cooperation so as to maximize the results of all theactivities within the UN system.

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IX. STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION OF JAPAN’S AFRICAN POLICY(1) The Distinguishing Feature of Japan’s African Policy
As a country that has moved from developing status into the ranks of the developed
nations, and also as a country that has never had African colonies, Japan interacts with
African countries on their own level. This distinguishes its foreign policy toward Africa
from the policies of the developed nations of the West, a point that has been clarified in,for example, past addresses on Japan’s African policy by its prime ministers and foreign
ministers. Japan’s policy toward Africa, which in this way has a special character, needs
to be positioned above the framework of the Washington Consensus, which in effectlegitimizes the preservation of Western countries’ vested interests in Africa. This isbecause Japan, unlike Western countries, neither has vested interests of its own inAfrica nor has a need to protect Western-led systems.
(2) Africa’s Essential Problems and JapanThe current situation in Africa and the problems the continent faces become easier tounderstand when we appreciate that the economies of African countries have been
incorporated into the economies of their former colonial rulers and other Westerncountries. An additional problem in African countries is the patron-client system, which
is deeply rooted in politics, the economy, and society. As long as this system exerts
strong influence, the importance of the issue of governance must not be underestimated.
The attainment of a self-reliant and sustained pattern of growth in these countries
would, for Japan, be beneficial in political terms as well as economic. The reality in Asia,
as demonstrated by the experiences of East Asia, including Southeast Asia, is thatdevelopment has been accomplished without leaving economies entirely in the hands ofthe international market mechanism. In this light, Japan should pursue a policy toward
African countries that seeks a major role for government in economic management anda political commitment to the realization of good governance.
(3) Trade Policy
In the fields of trade and assistance, the policy that Japan ought to be pursuing is not in
all respects being faithfully translated into actual policy measures. In terms of trade,
only about 1% of Japan’s total volume of trade is with African countries. More than 50%of that trade is with just one country, South Africa, while most of the rest, or 40%, iswith Liberia for its flag-of-convenience system, which merely allows Japanese vessels tosail under the Liberian flag. Even though Japan imports very few of Africa’s leading
exports—agricultural products—it imposes a full range of import controls on them, and,even though Africa’s development needs to begin with agriculture, Japan does notextend preferential treatment to its agricultural products. This sends a very negative
signal to farm development on the continent, quite apart from any technical assistanceJapan may be providing. Western countries, which are overly protective of their own

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agricultural sectors, come under criticism for making use of a double standard, but infact they cleverly open their markets quite widely to products that cause few problems,
a stance that gives them good publicity in African eyes.
(4) Tasks in Economic Cooperation Policy
Many issues need to be addressed in Japan’s economic cooperation policy. Japan’s aid
for Southeast Asia, most people agree, has made a significant contribution to Asia’s
rapid economic development. It does not necessarily follow, however, that equally
good results can be achieved in Africa simply by repeating more or less what was donein Asian countries, although many people think in that way. In its aid for Asia, Japan
has focused on building infrastructure, providing hardware, and facilitating the transfer
of technology. By chance, this assistance paradigm turned out to neatly match thepolitical, economic, and social conditions in Southeast Asia. Precisely because of thisgood fit, it seems reasonable to argue, Japan’s aid has made a constructive contribution
to the growth of the region’s economies. Another special factor is that market expansion
is one of the strategic objectives the Japanese have targeted in Southeast Asia, and thegovernment’s economic cooperation has meshed smoothly with the private sector’s
trade and investment.
This aid paradigm has worked well in Southeast Asia, but it is not working well in
Africa. To be sure, some African projects have been successful, but these represent only
dots on the African landscape; they have not yet become connected together in lines,
much less spread out over surfaces, at which point they would translate into national
development. This observation does not apply only to Japan’s aid; much the same canbe said of the African aid extended by other donor countries and internationalorganizations.
(5) Problems in the Aid Implementation Machinery
In addition to the insufficient appreciation of Africa’s special characteristics and theinadequate applicability of Japan’s aid paradigm, there are without doubt serious
deficiencies in the aid implementation machinery. TICAD, which has delivered aninternationally approved statement about the vision and framework for African
development, has indeed met with success as a Japanese initiative, but it is fair to ask
whether TICAD has really become the cornerstone of the efforts on the ground to
implement Japan’s African aid policy. Can we honestly say that when African projects
are being planned, the TICAD framework is foremost in the minds of all the officials in
the Foreign Ministry’s Economic Cooperation Bureau, the economic cooperation
personnel in Japan’s embassies, the staff members handling African affairs in the Japan
International Cooperation Agency, and the officials in charge of the assistance sectionsof the respective ministries and agencies, as well as all of the numerous members ofinvestigating commissions dispatched to put projects together? Joint investigation
teams go separately to many African countries to work on economic cooperation plans,35and while they no doubt strive to satisfy guidelines designed specifically for eachcountry (country assistance programs), surely they also endeavor to please eachministry by nominating and approving at least some of the projects it is interested in.
Many of the personnel working in the Economic Cooperation Bureau and inembassies are on loan from one of the central government’s ministries; they are notnecessarily assistance specialists, and they are often inclined to apply project screening
and financing criteria that match the interests of the ministry from which they havebeen seconded. The decisions made by the Economic Cooperation Bureau’s divisions,which have separate functions, are apparently not always well coordinated. No doubt itwould be wise to review and revise the arrangements for sending personnel on loan tothe bureau and to diplomatic establishments abroad.
France, the United Kingdom, and the United States staff their diplomaticestablishments in Africa with people who are knowledgeable about African history,
politics, and economic affairs. With such personnel in charge of administrative businessand economic cooperation, it becomes easier to execute policy measures that are in linewith each country’s African policy and that, accordingly, promote each country’s
interests. In Japan’s diplomatic establishments in Africa, by contrast, the staff members
responsible for economic cooperation—the people who get aid projects moving—arelikely to be seconded technical officials who know nothing about Africa, and they may
even be ignorant of the TICAD process.
JICA endeavors to turn its own staff members into assistance experts, and thiseffort has met with some success. JICA operates under the supervision of the Economic
Cooperation Bureau, however, and in some cases the bureau officials who provide thissupervision are themselves seconded from elsewhere. If these supervisors are notknowledgeable about aid, will they not sometimes reach decisions that fail to makeeffective use of JICA’s specialists? Of course, assistance professionals and Africa experts
are not the only ones capable of reaching wise decisions. Still, there is reason to believethat despite the availability of the excellent framework provided by TICAD, Japan’s aid
for Africa has not made sufficient use of it. The time has come for reform of theeconomic cooperation machinery and of the arrangements for seconding public
servants to front-line posts.
(6) Dynamic Dispatch of Personnel
Under the aid philosophy embodied in the TICAD process, Japan will make financial
commitments to individual African countries, the AU, and Africa’s subregionalorganizations, but it should also undertake to engage in dialogue and the exchange ofviews at the local level and to put forward ideas concerning development, dispute
prevention, and postconflict peace construction. Building a human network
encompassing the countries, the subregional organizations, and the AU overall isneeded. This is an endeavor that can provide diplomacy with a visible face.
TICAD III offers an opportune moment for thoroughly reviewing both the TICAD

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process and the economic cooperation system. In the course of executing the TICAD
process, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry
should be given spots to fill on an “All-Japan” team. As was just explained, the existingarrangements for seconding public servants to embassies and consulates need to be
overhauled. Africa experts who are knowledgeable about government business as wellas economic cooperation need to be trained and put to work in overseas diplomaticestablishments.
On occasion the foreign ministries and aid agencies of Europe send personnel towork for the AU and Africa’s subregional organizations. Japan has arranged to send
JICA specialists to the Southern African Development Community to assist in thesphere of technical cooperation, but it needs to do more than that. Thought should begiven to sending diplomats, think-tank researchers, scholars, specialists, andrepresentatives of NGOs and other civil-society organizations to Africa, where theywould work with the AU and subregional organizations (including the SADC, theEconomic Community of West African States, and the Intergovernmental Authority on
Development). At the same time, a system should be set up for dispatching seniorspecialist researchers—professors, associate professors, and other experts ondevelopment issues and African disputes, possibly including JICA’s own experts—toJapan’s embassies and Africa’s organizations. In some cases, these specialists could beaccorded treatment as staff members of the Foreign Ministry itself (the office of the
Director General of Sub-Saharan African Affairs) or of its diplomatic establishments
abroad.
Because of the straitened circumstances of public finance these days, Japan isbeing forced to make qualitative changes in its official development assistance. We may
say that the age of focusing narrowly on the size of fund commitments has come to an
end. In its cooperation with African countries as well, Japan must move beyond justproviding financial assistance for traditional economic cooperation schemes. Bearing in
mind the special circumstances and geopolitical dynamics of African countries, Japan
must strive to provide dynamic human and intellectual contributions.

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X. DRIVING THE TICAD PROCESS FORWARD(1) The Importance of Publicity
For a decade now Japan, under the TICAD banner, has been urging the whole world totake note of the importance of African development. Japan’s dedication to this quest,
which has earned it the trust of African countries, has become the biggest asset of thecountry’s African diplomacy. However, there is still a tendency in African countries andinternational organizations to misunderstand TICAD as being a fund for development
or a forum for fund pledges.
Now that a decade has passed since the first conference in 1993, we have finallyreached the point where the name TICAD and the nature of the TICAD process are
beginning to gain international recognition. Even so, only a few people know more thana little about TICAD, and most have never heard of it. This means that even though theprocess is now 10 years old, we must put even more effort into public relations, not justin Japan and Africa but widely around the world.
Though TICAD is not an institution that implements actual projects, a wide
assortment of projects are being carried out in its name. Henceforth we must raise the
TICAD banner yet higher and conduct thoroughgoing PR activities at home and abroad
for all the projects Japan is undertaking, whether independently or as a cosponsor.
When, for example, contributions for information and communication technology or
HIV/AIDS are announced at summit meetings, attention should be paid to publicizingthem in readily understandable terms, thereby letting the public know how much of theaid will go to Africa and where it will be put to use.
(2) Priorities for Promoting the TICAD Process• A system for promoting TICAD ought to be established in Japan. An office whose
purpose is the promotion of TICAD should be set up within the Foreign Ministry andmade responsible for coordinating African aid. All aid going to Africa should be routed
through this office, whose main goal will be to minimize the harm caused bybureaucratic sectionalism.
• NEPAD has been slow to get up and running. As NEPAD is a project on the nationaland regional level, Japan could constructively support it by regarding it as a project that
falls within the TICAD framework and is consistent with Japan’s country assistanceprograms.
• Numerous economic cooperation projects have already been implemented in Africa.
When new projects are started up, however, they should be examined from theperspective of the above-mentioned TICAD promotion system, and they should seek
above all to achieve comprehensive development of rural communities, which is theforemost concern of the endeavor to reduce poverty through economic growth.

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