The Japanese prime minister said he wanted to contribute to “quality growth” in Africa on Saturday, the first day of a summit with the continent in Tunis, announcing “investments of $30 billion” over three years.
Japan gives “priority to an approach that values human investment + and quality growth +”, declared Fumio Kishida, in a speech at the 8th Ticad (Tokyo International Conference on African Development) summit.
These “private and public” funds should be used for “the promotion of a green economy” that will benefit from an endowment of 4,000 million dollars, Kishida said by videoconference from Tokyo, unable to make the trip for just cause. of covid
debt danger
“To improve the lives of Africans, we will also provide up to $5 billion co-financed with the African Development Bank” (ADB), Mr. Kishida added, including $1 billion for “debt restructuring.”
In the previous Ticad of 2019, former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe warned Africa of the danger of accumulating “excessive” debt, alluding to China.
Beijing has steadily increased its influence in the region in recent years through its ambitious “Silk Roads” infrastructure project.
Japan also wants to help the continent in the face of shortages caused by the war in Ukraine, with 300 million dollars in co-financing with the AfDB, for “the production of food and the training of 200,000 people in agriculture.”
Twenty African leaders (heads of state or prime ministers) attend Ticad, according to Tunisian sources, as well as 5,000 people invited to a forum for entrepreneurs and parallel conferences.
In his speech, Tunisian President Kais Saied, host of the summit, called to “find together the means for Africans to realize the dreams and hopes of the first generation after independence.”
He also praised the successful Japanese who have been able to “achieve development while preserving their culture and traditions.”
The Senegalese president, Macky Sall, current president of the African Union, paid tribute to “the reference association” with Japan and welcomed “concrete results in agriculture, health, education, hydraulics.”
Since its creation in 1993, the Ticad summits, co-organized with the United Nations, the World Bank and the AU, have generated 26 development projects in 20 African countries.
The African Union in the G20?
For Mr. Sall, the African priorities are “the quest for pharmaceutical sovereignty” with an increase in the (local) production of vaccines and medicines and “food sovereignty”. Africa has 60% of the arable land, significant water resources and labor, but wants “investments for beneficial cooperation.”
Africa would also like “a reallocation of special drawing rights” from the IMF, to help it recover after the economic ravages of the covid epidemic and the war in Ukraine, Sall argued.
“Africa also advocates the suspension of debt interest by the G20” and has requested a seat within this grouping of the 20 main economies “to ensure better support for the interests of the continent”. According to Sall, this could materialize “at the next G20 summit in Bali” in November.
Before its start, the two-day summit experienced a diplomatic stumbling block with the departure of the Moroccan delegation and the withdrawal of the ambassador to Tunisia, as a reaction to the arrival in Ticad of the leader of the Polisario Front, which demands the independence of the territory of the Sahara. Western, Brahim Ghali.
Defending itself for having abandoned its “traditional neutrality”, Tunisia in turn recalled its ambassador to Morocco, assuring that the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), chaired by Mr. Ghali, had been invited by the African Union of which he is member.
Macky Sall said that he “regrets the absence of Morocco due to lack of consensus on a question of representation”, hoping that “this problem finds a solution”.
Ticad is politically important for President Saied, author of a coup a year ago by which he assumed all powers. And economically because Tunisia in crisis hopes to attract investors to 80 projects that can create 35,700 jobs.
Source: BFM TV
