Africa

Thematic Sessions 1-3 were held on Saturday, August 27, commencing at 3:00 p.m. (local time: 9:00 p.m. Japan time) for more than three hours. The overviews of the Sessions are as follows.

1. At Thematic Session 1, structural economic transformation to reduce the dependency on primary products was raised as a means of responding to declining international resource prices. Participants shared a view on the importance of investing in quality infrastructure, including developing roads, ports and harbors, and renewable energies (such as geothermal electric power generation), building food value chains and developing industrial human resources.   
2. At Thematic Session 2, strengthening response to public health crises and Universal Health Coverage (UHC) were taken up as discussion themes, and participants shared a view on the importance of strengthening each country's capacity to prevent of, prepare for, and respond to crises in coordination with international efforts, as well as of promoting UHC in order to deal with the broad-ranging health challenges that Africa faces.
3. At Thematic Session 3, the theme of promoting social stability in order to respond to the threats to peace and stability and the increased risk of natural disasters arising from climate change was raised. Mr. Fumio Kishida, Minister for Foreign Affairs, explained that Japan will move further ahead with cooperation on human resources development for peace-building and border controls that utilize advanced technologies, which are fields it has been emphasizing, while coordinating with the African Union (AU) and African Regional Economic Communities (RECs). Participants shared recognition of the importance of issues such as employment creation through job training for women and young people, strengthening public security capabilities, disaster risk reduction and food security.