TICAD Ministerial Follow-up Meeting

March 17, 2009
Japanese

The TICAD (Tokyo International Conference on African Development) Ministerial Follow-up Meeting will be held in Botswana on March 21 (Sat) and March 22 (Sun). The Government of Japan is represented by Mr. Hirofumi Nakasone, Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Mr. Nobuhide Minorikawa, Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, who will serve as co-chair and deputy co-chair respectively. Former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, who chaired TICAD IV in Yokohama last May, will also attend the opening session as Ambassador on Special Mission. Among the other participants, there will be representatives from TICAD co-organizers (the United Nations, the United Nations Development Program, and the World Bank), African countries, international and regional organizations, development partner countries, the private sector, and civil society.
In this Follow-up Meeting, participants are expected to review at ministerial level the progress of implementation of the assistance measures pledged at TICAD IV and to make suggestions for future progress. The participants are also expected to put voices of Africa together concerning the impact of the current global financial and economic crisis on Africa and actions to be taken against those influences, with a view to presenting these opinions to the London Summit scheduled for next April.
Taking the opportunity of attending the Follow-up Meeting, Mr. Fukuda will visit Kenya and Uganda to follow up TICAD IV, while Mr. Minorikawa will attend a high-level policy dialogue between Japan and the SADC (Southern African Development Community) and will visit Mozambique.

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