Asia and other regions. Japan will also strengthen collaboration with regional cooperation frameworks, and will support region-wide cooperation that encompasses several countries.

### 3. Priority Issues

In accordance with the objectives and basic policies set out above, the following are Japan's priority issues.

## (1) Poverty Reduction

Poverty reduction is a key development goal shared by the international community, and is also essential for eliminating terrorism and other causes of instability in the world. Therefore, Japan will give high priorities to providing assistance to such sectors as education, health care and welfare, water and sanitation and agriculture, and will support human and social development in the developing countries. At the same time, sustainable economic growth, increase in employment, and improvement in the quality of life are indispensable for realizing poverty reduction and Japan places importance on providing assistance for these issues accordingly.

## (2) Sustainable Growth

In order to invigorate developing countries' trade and investment, as well as people-to-people exchanges, and to support sustainable growth, Japan will place importance on providing assistance for the development of socioeconomic infrastructure — a key factor for economic activity, and also for policy-making, the development of institutions, and human resource development. This will include (i) cooperation in the field of trade and investment including the appropriate protection of intellectual property rights and standardization, (ii) cooperation in the field of information and communications technology (ICT), (iii) the acceptance of exchange students, and (iv) cooperation for research.

In addition, Japan will endeavor to ensure that its ODA, and its trade and investment, which exert a substantial influence on the development of recipient countries, are carried out in close coordination, so that they have the overall effect of promoting growth in developing countries. To that end, Japan will make efforts to enhance coordination between Japan's ODA and other official flows such as trade insurance and import and export finance. At the same time, private-sector economic cooperation will be promoted, making full use of private-sector vitality and funds.

## (3) Addressing Global Issues

As for global issues such as global warming and other environmental problems, infectious diseases, population, food, energy, natural disasters, terrorism, drugs, and international organized crime, further efforts must be given immediately and in a coordinated manner by the international community. Japan will address these issues through ODA and will play an active role in the creation of international norms.

## (4) Peace-building

In order to prevent conflicts from arising in developing regions, it is important to comprehensively address various factors that cause conflicts. As part of such undertakings, Japan will carry out ODA to achieve poverty reduction and the correction of disparities, as referred to above. In addition to assistance for preventing conflicts and emergency humanitarian assistance in conflict situations, Japan will extend bilateral and multilateral assistance flexibly and continuously for peace-building in accordance with the changing situation, ranging from assistance to expedite the ending of conflicts to assistance for the consolidation of peace and nation-building in post-conflict situations.

For example, ODA will be used for: assistance to facilitate the peace processes; humanitarian and rehabilitation assistance, such as assistance for displaced persons and for the restoration of basic infrastructure; assistance for assuring domestic stability and security, including disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration of ex-combatants (DDR), and the collection and disposal of weapons, including demining; and assistance for reconstruction, including social and economic development and the enhancement of the administrative capabilities of governments.

### 4. Priority Regions

In light of the objectives stated above, Asia, a region with a close relationship to Japan and which can have a major impact on Japan’s stability and prosperity, is a priority region for Japan. However, Japan will strategically prioritize assistance to Asian countries, fully taking into account the diversity of the Asian countries’ socioeconomic conditions and changes in their respective assistance needs. In particular, the East Asian region which includes ASEAN is expanding and deepening economic interdependency and has been making