Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs Nobuhide Minorikawa talking with patients in Atua Hospital supported by UNICEF (Ghana)

Development (USAID) for efficient and effective implementation of assistance based on the US-Japan Partnership for Global Health. In Senegal, with cooperation from JICA, USAID, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and international NGOs, youth counseling centers have been established and awareness-raising activities $ ^{27} $ have been conducted across the entire country since FY2005.

Japan hosted the Fifth ASEAN-Japan High Level Officials Meeting on Caring Societies in August 2007 in cooperation with the ASEAN Secretariat and the World Health Organization (WHO). High-level officials in charge of social welfare and health care policies from the 10 ASEAN countries were invited to attend the meeting (a total of 41 officials took part from the ASEAN side, including one at the vice-ministerial level). Under the theme of “Cooperation between social welfare and health care services, human resources development, and community development,” the meeting focused on the issues of provision of welfare and health care services for the elderly in the community, cooperation between welfare and health care, human resources development, and community development. Participants shared information and experience regarding the situation, action and model cases in each country, and constructive recommendations for the future efforts of the ASEAN countries were presented.

## (3) Water and Sanitation

Japan’s record in FY2007 is as follows:

Loan aid: ¥254.3 billion (to 10 countries)
Grant aid: Approx. ¥24.6 billion
Technical cooperation
257 trainees accepted
127 experts dispatched

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Water and sanitation is a serious issue that concerns all people’s lives. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), approximately 1 billion people worldwide in 2006 have no access to safe drinking water through waterworks or wells. $ ^{28} $ The problem of water and sanitation claims the lives of approximately 1.5 million young children each year. Furthermore, approximately 2.5 billion people around the world have no access to basic sanitation such as sewage systems, of which approximately 1.8 billion live in Asia and approximately 0.5 billion in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Reflecting this situation, the UN set an MDG target to “halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation” and marks the period from 2005 to 2015 as the International Decade for Action Water for Life. For example, the UN Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) has intensively discussed the themes of water, sanitation and human settlements. The United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation announced the Hashimoto Action Plan $ ^{29} $ on the occasion of the Fourth World Water Forum (March 2006). In addition, the G8 leaders declared at the Hokkaido Toyako Summit this year to revitalize the G8 Action Plan on Water adopted at the G8 Evian Summit of 2003.

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Japan has been making major contributions in the area of water and sanitation. It has continuously been the top donor in the international society since the 1990s. On the occasion of the Third World Water Forum in 2003, Japan announced the Initiative for Japan’s ODA on Water, a comprehensive assistance package for the water sector. In addition, at the