Senior Official-Level Meeting on Human Security

March 28, 2007

1.   A “Senior Official-Level Meeting on Human Security” was held on March 23 (Fri) at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

2.   The meeting was attended by representatives from 11 countries including Australia, Canada, France, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Singapore, Slovenia, Thailand, Viet Nam, and Japan, and seven international organizations, namely the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the World Food Programme (WFP), and the European Union (EU).  Among the Japanese participants, officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the International Peace Cooperation Headquarters of the Cabinet Office, and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), also took part in the meeting, and Mr. Koji Tsuruoka, Director-General for Global Issues, Foreign Ministry, chaired the meeting.

3.   This meeting took up the onsite experiences of each country and international organization in humanitarian assistance in areas of armed conflict and natural disaster, and various tasks in the transitional stages from humanitarian assistance to development.  The participants were able to share the recognition that continuous assistance was required from a viewpoint of human security.   They also agreed that human security was a viable and comprehensive concept to address various kinds of threats posed against individuals, and the viewpoint of human security should be valued to work on various tasks of development including the issues of poverty.

4.   The participating countries and organizations decided to continue dialogue in such arenas as the United Nations in the future to reflect the view point of human security on the activities of each country and international organization to achieve peace building and the millennium target of development.

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