Courtesy Call on Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, by Ms. Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
May 28, 2012
Japanese
 |
 |
On Monday, May 28, commencing at 2:30 p.m. for around 20 minutes, Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan, received a courtesy call from Ms. Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). The overview of the meeting is as follows.
- (1) Minister Gemba welcomed Ms. Cousin's first visit to Japan as the WFP's Executive Director, and expressed his expectation that the visit would to raise awareness within Japan of the WFP's activities and their achievements, as well as Japan's support for the WFP. He asked Ms. Cousin to build stronger ties with the WFP Parliamentary League. Additionally, he indicated that as a donor country, it was of special importance that Japan ensures better accountability for the people of Japan, and as such, he requested that Japan's contributions should be utilized effectively.
(2) Minister Gemba commended the WFP's work on projects to support self-reliance, and said that the WFP was an essential partner in realizing "human security", a concept that Japan was promoting. He remarked that Japan would continue to cooperate with the WFP in this regard. Furthermore, he said Japan would like to strengthen its cooperative relationship with the WFP toward the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V) next year and the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan in July this year. - In response, Ms. Cousin expressed gratitude for Japan's contributions to the WFP thus far, while promising that the WFP would continue to carry out projects appropriately, making sure to see that relief goods would reach the people who are most in need in order to eradicate hunger and improve livelihood. Additionally, she said she wanted to cooperate closely with Japan to support Afghanistan and Africa.
- (*The foregoing is a provisional translation. The date indicated above denotes the date of issue of the original version in Japanese.)
(END)
Related Information (Human Security)
Related Information (African Development: TICAD Process)
Back to Index
