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DEVELOPMENT: Japan-Africa Outcome ‘Inadequate’

Ramesh Jaura

YOKOHAMA, Japan, May 30 2008 (IPS) - A key document emerging from the fourth round of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) has failed to address HIV/AIDS in the region, says a non-governmental organisation.

The three-day deliberations near Japan’s capital Tokyo ended Friday with an agreement on three documents – the Yokohama Declaration, the Yokohama Action Plan, and the TICAD Follow-Up Mechanism.

But the action plan fails to undertake a commitment to ensuring universal access to the prevention, care and treatment of HIV/AIDS by 2010, the Africa Japan Forum says.

The forum called on the Japanese government to review the action plan, and to show leadership at the G8 summit of the major industrial nations in Hokkaido in Japan Jul. 7 to 9.

In view of the fact that Africa bears 80 percent of the global AIDS burden, G8 countries acknowledged the need to scale up the fight against AIDS by committing themselves to universal access to treatment by 2010 at the St. Petersburg G8 summit in July 2006.

“Yet the Yokohama Action Plan fails to address and fully support, through financial and technical means, the attainment of universal access by 2010,” the Africa Japan Forum’s Masaki Inaba told IPS.

The Africa Japan Forum welcomed the fact that the action plan recognises the role of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. It also lauded the Japanese government’s decision to spend 560 million dollars to fight AIDS in the coming years.

But the forum says that the amount pledged “still falls far short of what Japan should be committing as the world’s second largest economy, and based on increasing requests from countries requiring funding from the Global Fund.”

Although prevention is key to dealing with the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS, in generalised epidemic prone areas such as sub-Saharan Africa, prevention, treatment and care must all be strengthened, says the forum.

The action plan spells out a wide range of activities to be undertaken in the next five years. These encompass strengthening of health systems in Africa, improvement of maternal and child health, and measures against infectious diseases.

Commenting on the Africa Japan Forum criticism, a senior Japanese foreign ministry official said: “There has been a dialogue with the NGOs and there will be dialogue with them; they are very important members of the TICAD process, so they have had and will have a chance to put forward their ideas.”

“There is no antagonism between my government and the NGOs,” Shigeyuki Hiroki, the deputy director-general for international cooperation at the foreign ministry told IPS.

Hiroki said TICAD IV had confirmed the twin principles of African ownership of its development and partnership with the international community for development. These have guided the TICAD process since its inception in 1993. The meetings have been held every five years since then.

A second highlight was the discussion on the high food prices. Japan will mark a “significant portion” of a new 100 million dollar global emergency food assistance package for Africa to help cushion the impact of surging food prices, the foreign ministry official said.

A third highlight was that the African countries came to realise that global warming calls for urgent steps. President Jaykaya Kikwete of Tanzania, who is also president of the African Union, noted that Africa bears more than its fair share of the consequences while contributing the least to global warming.

“We salute the Japanese leadership in attaining a broad global consensus on a practical mechanism to follow up on the Kyoto Protocol, and applaud the creation by Japan of the 10 billion dollar Climate Change Fund,” Kikwete said. He asked that Japan set aside a fixed percentage of the Fund for Africa.

The action plan sets out TICAD priorities over the next five years: boosting economic growth, ensuring human security, including the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), consolidation of peace and good governance, and addressing environmental issues such as climate change.