working and living conditions as prescribed by the ILO Maritime Labor Convention of 2006, which came into effect in Japan in 2014.

## (ii) International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)

The ICAO is a specialized agency of the United Nations that has set forth certain rules and other stipulations for the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation and the sound and economic operations of international air transportation. Japan’s financial contributions are second among member countries and Japan, as a Governing Council country under PART I (States of chief importance in air transport), actively participates in various ICAO activities and contributes to the development of civil aviation.

As part of a task force that formulates recommendations on the establishment of a system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the field of international aviation, Japan has made a number of proactive contributions, such as by way of the appointment of a co-chairperson in March 2014.

## (iii) UN-Habitat

UN-HABITAT is a UN funding and planning agency specializing in human settlement issues. Japan has been an active council participant since the foundation of UN-HABITAT, and has taken advantage of its knowledge and record of accomplishment on improving land, regional, and residential environments to contribute to improving human settlement issues worldwide, with particular focus on the Asian population explosion and rapid urbanization.

In October 2016, Habitat III, a UN summit that has been held every twenty years and that involves discussions on international initiatives on human settlements and a summarization of the global agenda in this field, is slated to be held in Ecuador. Japan established a domestic council (co-chaired by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and MLIT) in April 2014 and has submitted a country-by-country report summarizing Japanese efforts and proactively shared information on its knowledge and experience with respect to land and regional policy during preliminary talks.

## (iv) United Nations Special Thematic Session on Water and Disasters

The United Nations Special Thematic Session on Water and Disasters is a high-level session attended by top officials of United Nations agencies and cabinet ministers from different countries. This session is organized to discuss initiatives of the international community in hopes of advancing water-related disaster countermeasures as adopted by each country. At the second high-level panel debate for this session, which was held in the United States (New York) in November 2015, Minister Ishii of MLIT spoke of the Great East Japan Earthquake, numerous floods, and other such events experienced by Japan and of the water-related disaster countermeasures that we have put into place based on the lessons that we learned through these events. He also emphasized how important it is for each country to regularly secure opportunities to share experiences and knowledge on water-related disasters and learn from one another if we are to reinforce water-related disaster countermeasures around the world. With respect to the High-Level Expert Panel on Water and Disasters, which aims to fortify water-related disaster initiatives undertaken by different countries, we participated in the fifth (April 2015) and sixth (November 2015) sessions and shared information on measures for adapting to climate change and other pertinent matters.

## (6) World Bank (WB)

The MLIT and WB jointly hosted an international conference on “Sustainable development through Quality Infrastructure Investments” in January 2016 in order to effectively share knowledge on Quality Infrastructure Investments with infrastructure officials in other countries. In addition, based on a chair summary of the Japan-OECD Policy Forum Concerning Urban Development and Green Growth (October 2014), MLIT and WB jointly hosted online seminars on Transit Oriented Development (TOD) in June and October 2015 to share knowledge on Japanese urban development with other Asian countries.