Statement by Ms. Makiko Tanaka, Minister for Foreign Affairs, on the Proposed Health Fund

May 16, 2001
Japanese

Recently, discussions on international measures against infectious diseases have been intensifying in various forums such as the United Nations and the G8 Summit Process. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and other countries, have proposed their ideas of a fund on health. Moreover, as the OAU AIDS Summit, which was held recently in Nigeria, shows, developing countries are also taking the leadership in efforts to overcome the diseases.

Japan has been consistently insisting on the importance of measures against infectious diseases. At the Kyushu-Okinawa Summit last year, Japan, as the presidency of G8, proposed that measures against infectious diseases should be taken up as one of the major themes of the Summit. Furthermore, Japan has been steadily taking steps to combat infectious diseases, for instance, by announcing the intention to commit $3 billion in a 5-year period and having implemented $400 million already.

In addition, Japan has been enhancing partnership among G8 countries, developing countries, international organisations, and NGOs on concrete measures against infectious diseases, and in December last year, Japan chaired the Okinawa International Conference on Infectious Diseases with all those stakeholders present.

Against this background from the Kyushu-Okinawa Summit, President George W. Bush of the United States of America, together with Secretary-General Kofi Annan of the United Nations, and President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria, announced their proposal of a Global Health Fund. In doing this, President Bush further announced a contribution of $200 million to this fund. We welcome and highly appreciate the announcement.

Japan regards this Global Health Fund to be extremely important in combating major infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. Japan, in co-operation with like-minded countries such as the United Nations, is considering an appropriate financial contribution. In view of the upcoming United National General Assembly Special Session on AIDS to be held in June, and the G8 Genoa Summit, Japan is determined to continue to lead the concrete actions against infectious diseases.

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