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■■■TCSF English Newsletter No. 2■■■

◆ June 2006 ◆

Viva! Africa: People’s Network Across Continents
Published by TICAD Civil Society Forum (TCSF)
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Dear Colleagues,

This English newsletter contains information about TCSF’s activities
and Japanese aid support toward Africa. It is our hope that sharing
this information will serve as some small means of strengthening the
network of people and organizations concerned with such endeavours.
Thank you for reading, and thank you for your ongoing support!

The Editors

━━━━━━━【Contents】━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

1. About TCSF
2. Working Group Activities
- TCSF White Paper Working Group
- Partnership Seminar Working Group
- Alert Working Group
3. Feature Stories
　　　- Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi Visits Africa
　　　- African Festa Held in Tokyo
　　　- TCSF Organizes Symposium on ODA
4. Japan-Africa Relations and Japan’s Aid Support

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１. About TCSF
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TCSF (Tokyo Civil Society Forum) was established in 2004, following
the third Tokyo International Conference on African Development
(TICAD III), by civilian participants from both African and Japanese
society. The goal of this Forum is to assist with and promote the
implementation of development efforts currently being undertaken by
people in Africa. The focus is on improving Japanese policy toward
Africa (and rest of the world) in order to help bring about real and
meaningful change. Concrete goals established by TCSF to be achieved
by 2008 (the year of G8 Summit and TICAD IV) include the following:
　
- Build a functioning network of civil society groups of Africa, Asia,
and Japan.
- Offer proposals based on results of specific survey analysis toward
promoting improvements to Japanese policies on African affairs, namely
by augmenting support for grass-roots efforts among African people.
- Work to make the TICAD process meaningful, so that the real voice of
civil society can be reflected in TICAD IV.

For further information, please refer to our website at:
http://ticad-csf.net/eng/e-index.htm

English blog available at: http://blog.livedoor.jp/ticad_csf/

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2. Working Group Activities
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■TCSF White Paper Working Group■
One of TCSF's central missions is to evaluate, from a civilian point of
view, Japan’s policies regarding assistance to Africa. The results of
our first trial evaluation we have published in a white paper titled:
“Evaluation by Civil Society on Japanese Policy to Africa --
Overcoming Poverty and Inequality".
The Japanese version of this white paper was published in March 2006,
and the English version is now available online at:
http://ticad-csf.net/eng/e-index.htm.
Please have a look and give us your comments!
We are now working on the second version, TCSF White Paper 2006, and
toward making the evaluations therein even more cogent and relevant, we
hope to enlist the participation of even more people from both Japanese
and African civil society.

■Partnership Seminar Working Group■
The Partnership Seminar Working Group organizes seminars in Africa with
local NGOs with the goals of building cooperative partnership with
African civil society and sharing information about Japanese foreign aid
policies toward Africa. In 2006, we are planning to hold seminars in
both Malawi and Ethiopia. We have also begun collaborating with the TCSF
Research Center and the Networking Working Group on planning workshops
based upon the theme of Building stronger, more effective networking
with African civil society organizations”. The first workshop, which
was conduced on May 22nd and featured a lecture by Naoko Tsuyama,
focused on the subject of “South African civil society and tips for
building network with local NGOs”.

■Alert Working Group■
In early May, the Alert Working Group published volume 4 of its
quarterly “Africa Alert News”. This latest issue included reviewed the
TICAD Conference on Consolidation of Peace in Africa by TCSF, the
Japanese government and Japanese CSOs, discussed the negative effects of
Operation Restore Order on the people of Zimbabwe, and explored the
issues of drought and food insecurity in East Africa. The English
version will be ready and available on our English website soon.

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【3】Feature Stories
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■Japanese Prime Minister Visits Africa■
From April 29th to May 5th, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited
Ethiopia, Ghana, and Sweden. Mr. Koizumi is the second Japanese Prime
Minister to have visited Sub-Saharan Africa. The official visit aimed
to strengthen partnership relationships between Japan and African
nations. TCSF asked the prime minister to convey a message declaring the
need for “more assistance to Africa” and “more people? and
civilian-centred aid to Africa”. On May 5th, Mr. Koizumi spoke in the
Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa to an audience that included African
Union Commission chairperson Alpha Konare. The Prime Minister emphasized
that Africa is currently in the process of changing from being a land of
“issues” to a land of “self-endeavour”, a trend that Japan wishes
to support and reinforce through stronger collaboration. He also
suggested ways to support change and reconciliation in strife-torn
Darfur, and also mentioned action plans to combat the spread of
infectious disease in Africa.
See http://ticad-csf.net/eng/e-index.htm to see details of TCSF’s
request to Mr. Koizumi, and
http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/africa/pmv0605/state.html for the content
of his speech in Addis Ababa.

African Festa 2006
On May 20th and 21st, African Festa 2006 was held in Tokyo’s Hibiya
Park. The event was organized by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs and held under the aupices of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government
and African embassies in Tokyo. The African Festa, held since 2001 with
the aim of giving Japanese people a deeper understanding of Africa, was
originated after the second Tokyo International Conference on African
Development (TICADⅡ). African Festa 2006 featured a talk show by Kohei
Yamada, who discussed his experiences in Malawi, a lecture by Dr. Makoto
Katsumata, dance performances by Nyama Kante from Guinea and other
groups, and a display of African fashions featuring a group of women
from several of the African embassies in Tokyo. Tents near the stage
offered a variety of cultural programs including dance and music
workshops, NGO-sponsored booths that introduced Africa through their
experiences, and exhibitions by African embassies in Tokyo. TCSF was
also there in one of the tents introducing some of the organizations
publications. During the two-day event about 68,500 visitors dropped by
to “experience Africa in Tokyo”.

Symposium on ODA Organised by TCSF

A symposium titled “Can Japan's ODA Save the World's Poor?” was held
in Tokyo on 27th May, 2006. Over 180 participants representing a variety
of NGOs and CSOs were in attendance, as well as government officials,
diplomats, academics, and development professionals. Featured panelists
included Richard Manning, chairman of the OECD/DAC, and Kazuo Kodama,
Consul General, Consulate General of Japan in Los Angeles, former
Director General and Assistant Inspector with the Japanese Foreign
Ministry's Bureau of Economic Cooperation. A variety of presentations
and discussions by major OECD/DAC donors focused on themes like the
potential for ODA to reduce poverty and the real role of ODA in civil
societies Important points agreed upon among the participants included
the need to increase ODA, the need to cultivate greater collaboration
between governments and NGOs, and the need for greater information
disclosure and realistic ODA reform.

Mr. Manning praised Japan for its achievements as the world's second
largest ODA donor, but also stressed that more well balanced economic
growth and greater social justice will become the most important keys
to eradicating poverty in Africa. Mr. Kodama announced the effective
integration of Japanese ODA loans by JBIC with JICA in 2008, and
emphasized the need to focus on agricultural and infrastructural
development. Another panellist, Prof. Minoru Obayashi of TCSF, offered
the position that reducing poverty should be the sole most important
aim of ODA, and he urged that TICAD 4 should include official
partnership between African governments and Japanese NGOs/CSOs in order
to better include the frank opinions and assessments of the poor
themselves on issues pertaining to ODA reform.

Representatives from fifteen African embassies in Tokyo, including
four ambassadors, were also among the participants. The symposium,
hosted by TCSF along with four other NGOs, was the first attempt among
Japanese NGOs/CSOs to organise such an event with the participation of
so many senior government officials and international organizations.
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【4】Japan-Africa Relations and Japan’s Aid Support
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May 1st: Mr. Keta Sato, an ambassador working with African peace-
building and refugees issues and a special envoy for UN reforms,
attended the special African Union summit on HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and
malaria. http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/event/2006/5/0501.html
May 11th: Egyptian foreign minister visited Japan.
See http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/event/2006/5/0511.html for details.
May 16th: Emergency grant aid to the African Union to support
initiatives concerning the Darfur issue.
See http://www.mofa.go.jp/announce/announce/2006/5/0516.html for
details.
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◆TCSF operates an English mailing list to facilitate communication
between TCSF and African CSOs and among African CSOs. If your address
is not on the list and you wish to join,
please contact TCSF by emailing: office@ticad-csf.net
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TICST Civil Society Forum (TCSF)
http://ticad-csf.net/eng/e-index.htm
office@ticad-csf.net
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