Japan was highly appreciated by the Honduras Ministry of Education, and these teacher's manuals and exercise books are to be utilized nationwide beyond the three provinces. It was not included in the initial plan, but it has since been determined that the Government of Canada will provide financial assistance for expenses necessary to print these teacher's manuals and exercise books within the framework of the FTI support. This can be said to be an excellent example of the case where aid coordination gets on well by combining Japan's project assistance and other donor's financial assistance. In addition to the assistance to Honduras, Japan has also been promoting cooperation toward improvement of the quality of education in many developing countries such as Ghana and Cambodia.

Incidentally, under the "cooperation basis" $ ^{*1} $ inaugurated in April 2003 for the purpose of implementing cooperation in education in a wide range of areas, Hiroshima University and the University of Tsukuba are taking the initiative in strengthening the domestic support system that promotes "sharing of experience in international cooperation" to enhance Japan's efforts in the educational sector and to support the training of teachers to be dispatched overseas.

In addition, the "United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD)," which Japan advocated at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002 in response to an NGO's proposal, was included in the WSSD Plan of Implementation. To that end, Japan submitted a resolution relating to the UNDESD to the United Nations General Assembly in the same year, and the resolution was adopted. Japan has been working to promote the UNDESD by contributing 0.1 million dollars to the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in fiscal year 2003 as a country that advocated the UNDESD, as well as by holding the "Asia Cooperation Dialogue of Japan Environmental Education: Toward the Implementation of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development" in Tokyo in June 2004.

## (2) Health Care and Welfare

In many developing countries, numerous people are still suffering without receiving basic health services that are available on a daily basis in developed countries. MDGs include three goals in the health sector—reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other infectious diseases. This sector is thus emphasized as a sector directly related to poverty reduction. Japan has been providing assistance while considering infectious diseases, maternal and child health, and establishment of a health system as priority issues in the health sector.

Based on the recognition that infectious diseases are not only issues of public health in developing countries but also are now large factors that hinder the economic and social development of developing countries, Japan presented the "Okinawa Infectious Diseases Initiative (IDI)" at the Kyushu-Okinawa G8 Summit in July 2000, and has been working on comprehensive measures against infectious diseases through bilateral and multilateral assistance under the same initiative. In this initiative, Japan expressed that it would provide support worth approximately 3 billion dollars for measures against infectious diseases over the next five years, and disbursement exceeded 2.446 billion dollars as of the end of fiscal year 2002. Japan has also been giving assistance in financial and human resources to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM), established in January 2002, and other related international organizations.

The important role of GFATM was reconfirmed at the Sea Island G8 Summit in 2004, and GFATM is expected to play a central role in the global response against these three infectious diseases. As of June 2004, GFATM approved a total of 296 aid programmes in 128 countries, amounting to approximately 3.03 billion dollars. Through the implementation of these approved programmes, 1.6 million AIDS patients will be provided with antiretroviral treatment, 52 million people will be assisted with HIV preventive services, 35 million people will be given treatment for tuberculosis by DOTS.

## $ ^{*} $ I: Cooperation Basis

Cooperation basis embodies "strengthening of the domestic cooperation system," which was included in BEGIN, and it focuses on the following: (1) "sharing of experience in cooperation" to strengthen major activities in the educational sector, (2) support for in-service teachers to be dispatched (transfer of shared experience in cooperation), and (3) support for promoting the utilization of sectors with less experience in cooperation. This is based on the idea of strengthening the domestic cooperation system at the initiative of the University of Tsukuba and Hiroshima University, and the establishment of the cooperation basis has been in progress through cooperation among the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, JICA, and JBIC.