Improvement of Medical Equipment of Primary Health Care Facilities in the Field of Mother and Child Health," in which Japan provides medical equipment as grant aid for the purpose of improving primary medical care in the field of maternal and child health. In an effort to improve the medical standard of an area with a larger population of the poor and lesser access to basic medical services than other areas in the country, Japan has been providing the area with medical equipment as grant aid.

One of the characteristics of assistance given to Central Asia and the Caucasus is that a large part of the assistance was provided under the Grant Assistance-Grassroots/Human Security Projects. Most of the assistance was given to the fields of education and health and medical care. Japan believes that such assistance will continue to play an important role in the region as long as Japan keeps carefully adjusting its assistance according to the needs of the recipients and providing such assistance in a timely manner for the purpose of narrowing the regional gaps.

### 4. Africa $ ^{26} $

Japan's ODA given to Africa on a bilateral basis totaled approximately 529.98 million dollars in 2003, accounting for 8.8% of the total bilateral ODA.

Africa has many challenges such as serious poverty, conflicts, starvation, infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS, and accumulated debt. In recent years, the international community has reaffirmed the importance of the development of Africa and started paying more attention to the region. Since the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000, international conferences on development have devoted a large part of their discussions to issues related to the development of Africa and other problems in Africa. In this respect, Japan has been a front runner since the beginning of the 1990s in taking the initiative in development assistance to Africa. Having seen the international community losing its interest in Africa since the end of the cold war, Japan, with intention to revive the interest of the international community in Africa, held TICAD I (Tokyo International Conference on African Development) in 1993 and TICAD II in 1998, in which Japan advocated the importance of "Ownership" (self-help efforts) of Africa and "Partnership" of the international community. Japan's initiative in assisting Africa to solve problems prompted the international community to strengthen its assistance to African development. This trend can also be seen in G8 summit meetings as well. When Japan chaired the G8 Kyushu-Okinawa Summit in 2000, Japan invited the presidents of South Africa, Nigeria, and Algeria so that they could have dialogues with the leaders of G8 countries. Since this G8 Summit meeting, African related issues have become one of the major agenda of G8 Summit. The G8 Kananaskis Summit in 2002 adopted the "G8 Africa Action Plan," which resulted in enhancing concrete cooperation between G8 and Africa. Recognizing the importance of "Ownership", Africa is also taking concrete measures including adoption of "NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa's Development)" $ ^{27} $ and establishment of the AU (African Union). Against this backdrop, the ODA Charter specifies that Japan should recognize that there are many least

Chart II -32 Japan's ODA Disbursements to Central Asia and the Caucasus

Rank	Country or region	(Net disbursement basis, $ million)
Grant	Total	Yen loans, etc.	Total
Grant aid	Technical cooperation
1	Kazakhstan	4.89	10.62	15.51	120.76	136.27
2	Azerbaidzjan	4.53	1.59	6.12	73.70	79.82
3	Uzbekistan	10.28	12.04	22.32	40.90	63.22
4	Kyrgyz	10.72	6.34	17.06	14.17	31.23
5	Georgia	3.89	1.11	5.01	11.41	16.42
6	Armenia	5.29	1.72	7.02	-	7.02
7	Turkmenistan	0.31	0.20	0.51	6.29	6.80
8	Tadzhikistan	2.33	2.43	4.77	-	4.77
Central Asia and the Caucasus Total	42.26	36.04	78.31	267.22	345.53

Note: (1) The geographic division was made based on the classification by the Foreign Ministry. (2) As the figures in the table are rounded off, they do not necessarily add up to the totals.

26. The geographic division was made based on the classification by the Foreign Ministry. The term "Africa" in this context refers to the sub-Saharan African countries. Sudan is included in the Middle East.