We Are Tomodachi Japan in Africa Edition 2016

6/38

6　At long last, and exactly as promised, TICAD (Tokyo International Conference on African Development) has come to Africa! With 23 years behind us, TICAD is now on African soil, opening a new chapter in the relationship between Japan and African countries. Africa is now off and running, aiming at long-range goals, aspiring to be a certain kind of continent with certain kinds of countries in 2063. Agenda 2063—the grandness of this concept, to the best of my knowledge, is simply unparalleled.　However, the enormous continent of Africa has given no permanent member to the United Nations Security Council. Agenda 2063 states clearly that by 2023, it will rectify this situation. You in Africa have a right as a matter of course to demand that the international community better reflect your views. Africa should send a permanent member to the United Nations Security Council by 2023 at the very latest.　Reform of the United Nations Security Council is truly a goal that Japan and Africa hold in common. I call on everyone here to walk together towards achieving it. 　Over the recent past, Africa has not been free from tragedy. Ebola virus disease claimed over 10,000 lives. Some countries are troubled by the plunge in the price of commodities, while in other nations, peace has been shattered.　Whatever problems there are in Africa, however, they are quite simply there to be solved, period. And Japan is a country that ardently hopes to resolve the issues facing Africa together with Africa, and will not let up in its efforts.　Some 70 Japanese companies have sent executives here to TICAD. Japanese companies are committed to quality. Our hunch is that the time has come to make the best of Japan’s capabilities, Japanese companies’ capabilities, for the advancement of Africa, where you seek nothing but quality in your socio-economic development. I declare to you that we will launch the “Japan-Africa Public and Private Economic Forum” as a permanent forum. Members of the Japanese Cabinet, together with top executives from Japan’s major business associations and corporations, will visit Africa once every three years. This makes it a forum bringing the power of the public and private sectors together to forge solutions.　The pledges my government announced three years ago in Yokohama still have two years remaining before they fall due, and yet 67 percent of them have already been carried out.　Today’s new pledges enhance and further expand upon those launched three years ago. The motif here is “Quality and Empowerment,” which reflects the outcomes of the G7 Summit Japan hosted this year in a place called Ise-Shima.　Allow me here to add to the word “Africa” the three modifiers of “quality,” “resilient,” and “stable.” That is precisely the form of Africa that Japan will aim for, working together with you.　A “quality Africa” will be built through the three elements of infrastructure, human resources, and “kaizen.”　Japan will appropriate approximately 10 billion US dollars to Africa over the next three years for building Full text: http://japan.kantei.go.jp/97_abe/statement/201608/1218850_11013.htmlExcerpts from the Speech at the Opening Session of TICAD VI, Delivered in Nairobi, Kenya, August 27, 2016Japan’s Vision for African Development

※このページを正しく表示するにはFlashPlayer10.2以上が必要です