Japan focuses on Africa

The fourth Tokyo Internatio-nal Conference on African Development (TICAD IV) started today in the port city of Yokohama with more than forty heads of state and government from the continent joining the gathering. The three-day conference, the fourth in the series with a five-year gap, is being held at a time when Africa's average economic growth has reached 6 percent and peace-building and democratisation are bringing desired results.
But at the same time, the progress has been slowed down in part of the continent due to recent surge in food prices and sky-rocketing of the price of oil. Against this backdrop, the Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda inaugurated TICAD IV with a generous offer of up to $4 billion of soft loans to Africa over the next five years. Much of that Japanese funding is intended for the use of infrastructure development of the continent.
The Japanese prime minister also stressed on the importance of direct investment by Japanese companies in Africa, and linked infrastructure development with that initiative by saying that Japanese companies would have greater interest in Africa as infrastructure of the continent increased.
He also said that the increased private sector direct investment from Japan would pave the way for transfer of technology and managerial know how from Japan towards Africa.
Fukuda reminded African leaders that for this reason the Japanese government would implement measures to promote the activities of Japanese companies in Africa in tandem with country's involvement in the development of African infrastructure.
The Japanese prime minister also made a call to double the current rice output of Africa over the next ten years. Expressing concern over difficulties African countries were facing as a result of the sharp rise in the food prices, he pledged targeting to Africa a significant amount of emergency food assistance package equivalent to $100 million that Japan recently announced.
On issues related to health and combating infectious diseases, Japan is considering a number of measures to ease the Africa's burden, and Fukuda's speech outlined some of those steps, including the training of one hundred thousand health workers in Africa over the next five years and dispatching of Japanese researchers to universities and research institutes in Africa.
Fukuda also pledged to double Japan's ODA to Africa over a period of five years and said that Japan would coordinate with the international community to address issues of debt relief for Africa.
As Japan prepares for the upcoming G8 summit in early July, where the issue of climate change will be one of the major themes for discussion, Fukuda said that Japan intended to engage in assistance to developing countries, including African nations that aim to achieve greenhouse gas emissions reductions and economic growth in a compatible way.

Mozurul Huq is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star writing from Japan.