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++++TCSF English Newsletter Extra Edition++++ February 3, 2008

Viva! Africa: People's Network across Continents
Published by TICAD Civil Society Forum (TCSF)
http://ticad-csf.net/eng/index.htm
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Ethiopian Civil Society submit recommendations to Japan's Former Prim
Minister
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Mr. Mori, the former Prim Minister of Japan represented Japanese
Government at AU Summit in Addis Ababa met the representative of
Ethiopian Civil Society and received recommendations for Japan's ODA.
Mrs Semira, Acting Director of Christian Relief and Development
Association (CRDA) met Mr. Mori on 30th of January 2008 and handed over
him the message from Ethiopian Civil Society. Mr. Nakayama, a
ministerial aid at MoFA, and Mr. Komano, the Ambassador of Japan to
Ethiopia were present at the event.

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Letter to Mr. Mori
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Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

The Ethiopian civil society would like to express its sincere
appreciation to the Japanese Government and its people for their
considerable contribution to the people of Ethiopia. The appreciation
goes not only to financial and material support but also to the
solidarity and moral support, which are the basis of peoples-to-peoples
relationships and encouragement for us to overcome difficulties.

The civil society in general and NGO in particular is one of the
important stakeholder in development and relief arena in Ethiopia.
There are nearly three thousand civil society organisations in Ethiopia
having wider roles in supporting grassroots people in their development
endeavor complemented with dialogue engagement with the government with
the view to facilitate the formulation and implementation of pro-poor
policies accompanied with transparent and credible implementation
procedures.

Representatives of the Ethiopian civil society, who gathered at the
Ethiopia-Japan Partnership Seminar, discussed the Japanese Official
Development Assistance; and the role of the civil society in Ethiopian
development in the area of:

1. Accelerating economic development
2. Millennium Development Goals,
3. Peace consolidation and democratisation, and
4. Environmental degradation and climate changes.

The outcome of the discussion has been compiles as Voices of Ethiopian
and Japanese civil society, which is attached herewith.

During the discussion, we have shared the followings as major issues for
enabling the Japanese Official Development Assistance to be more
beneficial to grassroots people in Africa at large and Ethiopia in
particular

1. Give focus to pro-poor, people centred development efforts
2. Make the assistance programme to be more flexible to needs of the
grassroots
3. Create a TICAD follow-up mechanism where all the stakeholder
including the African and Japanese civil societies participate in the
development assistance including budget monitoring/social accountability
4. Recognize civil society organisations as full-fledged development
partners and develop their capacity in order to impact at grassroots
level
5. Exercise the leadership and encourage the international community to
increase their development assistance for poverty alleviation in general
and for the realization of the MDGs

Yours respectfully,

On behave of the Ethiopian civil society who took part in the
Ethiopia-Japan Partnership Seminar

Mrs. Semira, Acting Director, CRDA

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Summary of the "Voices of Ethiopian and Japanese Civil Society towards
TICAD IV"
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January 22nd, 2008

Representatives of Ethiopian Civil Society gathered at the
Ethiopia-Japan Partnership Seminar which was held in Addis Ababa on 22nd
of January, 2008 discussed issues around development in Ethiopian
context with particular emphasis on their impacts on grassroots people
and the role of civil society and Japanese assistance to the effort
rendered by the Ethiopian civil society. Based on the outputs from the
seminar, this document has been compiled as recommendations to Japanese
government for its better policy and assistance programme to Africa in
closer collaboration with the civil society.

1. Accelerating Economic Growth
- Support to create forum between the government and the civil society.
- Establish forum that will help to make networking between Japanese ODA
and Ethiopian Civil Society.
- Develop flexibility in the ODA schemes such as extended project period,
amount ceiling and more responsiveness to changes of situation.
- Include technical cooperation in the support to civil society
- Understand the local reality and to be flexible accordingly in their
grant policies, procedures, funding and monitoring development
programs/projects.
- Closer collaboration with the civil society in ODA programme.

2. Human Security
2-1. Millennium Development Goals
- Empower people and community to be more assertive.
- Support community to monitor the government's programme towards MDGs.
- Support capacity building of the government.
- Promote sustainable development using local knowledge.
- Be more accountable to the community.
- Create awareness on gender, marginalised and disabled among the
community.
- Integrate the issue of gender, marginalised and disabled in its own
intervention.
- Ensure right based approach to development

2-2. Peace Consolidation and Democratisation
- Recognise that MDGs are the issue of grassroots people.
- Assist capacity development of the government and civil society
through financial and technical support, infrastructure development
and provision of human resource.
- Work in line with the interest of the community. Grant shouldn't make
people for slavery but serve for the solidarity of humans and partners.
- The existing good experiences, best practices and trends, such as
donors' pre grant approval visits, on going monitoring, willing to
work in remote/inaccessible areas and trying to reach the unreachable
ones, one time grant release should continue.
- All the grants, loans and other foreign aids should be related
directly to the attainment of MDGs.
- Assist the nature of the government to be popular and democratically
elected that works with zero bureaucracy and without corruption.

3. Environment Degradation and Climate Changes
- Provide technical and financial assistance for integrated watershed
management that address environmental and community problems
simultaneously,
- Strengthening institutional capacity at grassroots level both for
community based and government institutions,
- Popularize problems of environment and their solutions at
international level,
- Assist Ethiopian Government to ratify/implement national environmental
regulations and international conventions,
- Promote further inter - agency collaboration (e.g. JICA) and working
in close collaboration with the Ethiopian Civil Society

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