President Thabo Mbeki to Lead South African Delegation to Tokyo International Conference on African Development III (TICAD) Tokyo, Japan 28 - 29 September 2003

President Thabo Mbeki, accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs - Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, will lead the South African delegation to the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICADIII) in Tokyo, Japan from Sunday, 28th - Monday, 29th September 2003. The meeting will also be attended by Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal.

Issues to be discussed include among others:
· Consolidation of Peace
· Prevention of Conflict
· Consolidation of Peace
· Human-centred development
· Health and Infectious Diseases
· Water Supply
· Capacity Building
· Human Resources Development
· Governance
· Infrastructure
· Social and Economic Infrastructure
· ICT
· Agricultural Development
· Increase of agricultural productivity and income
· Food security and emergency response
· Private Sector Development
· Promotion of domestic industries
· Promotion of trade and investment
· Expansion of Partnership
· Asia - Africa Cooperation
· Cooperation within Africa
· Dialogue with Civil Society
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Issued by Ronnie Mamoepa at 082-990-4853
? Department of Foreign Affairs
Private Bag X152
Pretoria
0001
26 September 2003

BACKGROUND
TICAD is an initiative for African development launched in 1993 through the joint efforts of Japan, the UN and the Global Coalition for Africa. The World Bank joined the TICAD co-organisers in 2000.

TICAD II, held in 1998 and aimed to stress the importance of African development to the international community and to increase support to Africa. At this meeting, the Tokyo Agenda for Action was adopted and provided a framework for co-operation in the TICAD Process identifying the shared goals, objectives and guidelines for actions to be taken by Africa and its partners.

In addition TICAD supports the ownership of the development process by Africa, embodied in the pursuit of priorities set by Africa itself. TICAD also enshrines a vision of African development that integrates the principle of global partnership based on an equal footing among all development partners.

In this regard, primary goals of TICAD include:
· To promote high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and their partners;
· To mobilise support for Africa's own development efforts;
· To "retune" international level(s) of commitment to Africa;
· To focus and strengthen operational approaches in the many processes essential for African development;
· To strengthen co-ordination among all development partners;
· To promote regional co-operation and integration through the support for regional and sub-regional groupings and organisations; and
· To promote South-South co-operation in general, and Asia-Africa co-operation in particular, through the exchange of experience and knowledge.

Global interest in African issues has mounted in the last decade. The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000, clearly and statistically demonstrated the urgent needs of African development. The International Conference on Financing for Development in Monterrey and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, discussed the issue of African development intensely. In 2002, the G8 also adopted the G8 African Action Plan. Africa itself has also shown its ownership and firm political will for development by establishing the African Union (AU) and giving birth to NEPAD.

SOUTH AFRICA, JAPAN AND THE TICAD PROCESS

Since the normalisation of bilateral relations in 1992, Japan has regularly indicated that both South Africa and Japan both are the driving economic forces in their respective regions. In this regard, Japan views South Africa as a strategic partner in the African continent and has consistently expressed the wish to synchronise the TICAD and NEPAD Processes.

In Africa, and in Southern Africa in particular, Japan seeks to contribute to the strengthening of democracy and good governance through economic development and poverty alleviation. By assisting South Africa to be a stable and prosperous "hub" in the Southern African region, it is intended that the so-called "ripple effect", characteristic of Japan's economic involvement vis-à-vis especially East Asia, will spread from South Africa to neighbouring states in Southern Africa. Thus Japanese ODA, is targeted at furthering stability and peace, fostering the democratisation process, promoting good governance and market-orientated economic policies.

TICAD I and later TICAD II became the policy framework for Japanese multilateral and bilateral aid initiatives (ODA) in Africa. Economic development has been facilitated through the Africa-Asia Business Forum, which has resulted in several lucrative business ventures between Africa and Asia.

SOUTH AFRICA - JAPAN DEVELOPMENT COOPERATION

1994 - 1999: Policy and strategy formulation

The main thrust of development co-operation during the first five years was to support Government efforts in developing sustainable and equitable policies and strategies. Significant support was also channelled into large centrally co-ordinated reconstruction and development projects, the so-called RDP Presidential Lead Projects. Total ODA commitments to South Africa during this period amounted to more than R20 billion (around US 2.5 billion dollars).

The largest commitments were made to the education sector (21.76%), followed by government and civil society (18.49%), other social infrastructure and services (12.97%), water supply and sanitation (10.96%), business and other services (10.41%) and health (6.45%). Together, these sectors accounted for 81.8% of total ODA commitments.

During this period, the Government of Japan made available an ODA package to the amount of US 1.3 billion dollars, in the form of loans, grants (including small scale grants for grass roots projects), technical assistance and training. For a number of reasons, Japan's loan assistance was not significantly utilised. South Africa's foreign borrowing objectives/strategies are:

· Establish sovereign benchmarks in key currencies in international capital market;
· Broaden and improve quality of investor base;
· Lengthen and smoothen maturity structure of the debt profile;
· Elimination of the net open forward currency position (NOFP); and
· To keep presence in foreign markets.

Japan's grant and technical assistance, primarily in the areas of water supply, the provision of medical equipment and school building, were fully in line with South Africa's development priorities. Japan's school-building programme in the Eastern Cape made a significant impact in terms of addressing the infrastructure backlog in that province. The Government of Japan very early on recognised the importance of assistance to social service delivery.

From policy - making to implementation

In order to give effect to the policy objectives of the RDP and GEAR, which underpin the Government's efforts to achieve sustainable growth, development and improved standards of living, there has been an increasing emphasis on government service delivery since 1999. Development co-operation has mirrored this trend, with support being targeted at capacity - building for service-delivery at provincial and local government level.

In 1999, following the second democratic elections in South Africa, the Government of Japan announced an assistance package totalling US 1.5 billion dollars over a five-year period. Again the package consisted primarily of confessional loans, with US 100 million dollars made available in the form of grants, technical assistance and training.

The bulk of the grant assistance provided was again allocated for the provision of medical equipment and school building. Technical assistance was successfully provided in the areas of primary and secondary education, SMME promotion and human resource development. Japan's training programmes, offered through JICA in Japan, is a unique instrument that offers trainees (and the institutions that they represent) the opportunity not only to acquire critical skills, but also direct interaction with trainees from many other recipient countries, as well as exposure to the Japanese culture and language.

This is a crucial element of nurturing understanding and partnership between nations. JICA experts in South Africa are also very much appreciated. Furthermore, the launch of the Japanese Volunteers (JOCV) programme in South Africa is also regarded as an important step for strengthened development co-operation with Japan.