Koizumi Meets African Leaders, Will Announce $1 Billion Aid

TOKYO, 29 September 2003 — Japan’s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi met African leaders yesterday in the run-up to an international conference on the continent’s development where Tokyo is set to pledge one billion dollars in grants.

With bilateral meetings taking place one after another at a Tokyo hotel, Koizumi was meeting with leaders from 19 African nations by late yesterday. A Foreign Ministry official said Japan, as the host country of the conference, planned to commit one billion dollars in grants toward African nations over five years.

“Japan would like to offer a framework to promote Asian-African cooperation” although Japan does not have much historical and geographic relations with Africa unlike countries such as France and Britain, he said.

Koizumi is to announce the aid formally in a keynote speech today at the opening of the three-day Third Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD III). The grants are expected to be spent on health and medical measures, such as the fight against AIDS, education and food.

The ministry official said it would be difficult to divide the sum between every African nation but added Japan’s total aid to Africa for five years would be far bigger than one billion dollars to be pledged at the TICAD III.

Representatives of nearly 50 African nations, including 23 heads of state or government, are due to attend the meeting to address the continent’s pressing needs and examine ways to help it achieve peace and economic prosperity.

The participants in the meeting will number about 90, including donor countries and international organizations. TICAD has been held every five years under Japan’s initiative, with the first conference in 1993 attended by five African leaders. By TICAD II in 1998, participation had expanded to 14 African leaders who signed the Tokyo Agenda for Action, which set a goal of reducing the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty by at least one-half by 2015. At that conference Japan pledged to provide $750 million to African countries.