President Kikwete opens 2nd TICAD Ministerial meeting in Arusha

Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Bernard Membe(centre) introduces to President Jakaya Kikwete Japan Minister for Foreign Affairs Katsuya Okada shorly after the President arrived at Arusha International Conference Centre(AICC) to open the second TICAD Ministerial Follow up meeting today.
President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete and Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr. Katsuya Okada arrive at Arusha International Conference Centre for the opening ceremony of the 2nd TICAD Ministerial meeting President Jakaya Kikwete delivers his opening speech during the 2nd TICAD Ministerial Follow meeting at AICC in Arusha today
A cross section of participants to the 2nd TICAD Ministerial Follow up meeting at the AICC today.

The Second TICAD Ministerial Follow-up Meeting
2-3 May 2010, Arusha International Conference Centre,

United Republic of TanzaniaAfrican ministers and delegates from Japan and African countries, along with representatives ofother partner countries, international and regional organizations, the private sector and civilsociety organizations will gather from 2 to 3 May in Arusha for the Second Ministerial FollowupMeeting of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD).

The two daymeeting, which is hosted by the Government of the United Republic of Tanzania, is coorganizedby the Government of Japan, the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser onAfrica (UN-OSAA), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.

The themes of the two-day meeting are: Progress status of implementation of the YokohamaAction Plan and future challenges; Africa’s efforts to recover from the impact of the globalfinancial and economic crisis; Achieving the Millennium Development Goals; and AddressingClimate Change issues.

African delegates and development partners will review progress made in the implementation ofthe Yokohama Action Plan. They will issue a Communiqué that is expected to be presented atforthcoming international fora, including the UN MDG Summit (High-level Plenary Meeting ofthe sixty-fifth session of the UN General Assembly) in September in New York.

TICAD IV Annual Progress Report 2009 – Digest Version:
http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/africa/ticad/
ticadfollow-up/annualreport2009digest.html

For further information,
please contact:
Nicholas N. Gouede,
TICAD/UNDP Africa Bureau,
New York,
email: nicholas.gouede@undp.org
telephone: +1 (212) 906-5954.


From ASSAH MWAMBENE, Arusha

President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete of Tanzania has commended Japan for honoring its pledges to increase its official Development Assistance to Africa (ODA) especially in the infrastructure and human development sectors.

Opening the 2nd TICAD IV Ministerial follow up Conference here yesterday, the President said Japan has honoured its pledges made at the Yokohama TICAD IV summit in 2008 in time.

He said for example, out of the total 4bn USD pledged in the period of five years for ODA soft loan for financing infrastructure, about 2 billion USD has been disbursed by the end of March 2010.

“The goals which were announced by the government of Japan at the TICAD IV Summit in Yokohama have been achieved faster than expected for the second year of its follow up process” he said.

In this background, the President noted that Africa has no doubt of the Japan’s move to double its ODA to Africa from 900 Million USD to 1.8 billion per annum and doubling its Foreign Direct Investment to Africa from 1.7 billion USD to 3.4 billion USD by year 2012.

The President also called on the Japanese government to help Africa strategically promote the continent as one of the most high value tourism destination worldwide.

“We seek the support of the Japanese government to help us promote Africa as high value tourist destination and encourage Japanese tourists to come to Africa” the President said.

He said it was unfortunate that only 1.5 per cent of the Japanese tourists visits Africa while it happened to be one of the leading tourist source nations in the world.

Earlier, the Japanese Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr. Katsuya Okada had told the meeting that Japan has almost fulfilled its promise under the Yokohama TICAD IV framework and that significant progress has been achieved since then.

The meeting is meant to assess the progress of the Yokohama Action plan and future challenges, achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and the issues of climate change.

It is being Chaired by the Tanzanian Finance and Economic affairs Minister, Mstapha Mkullo and the Japanese Foreign Minister, Mr. Katsuya Okada. The meeting ends today.