A large number of achievements were released from Japan at TICAD4, held in Yokohama, I can say. Having heads from 40 countries in Africa to the conference, the Prime Minister Fukuda met and talked personally with them almost every day. In addition, he talked with Dr. Bono as well as Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, UN Secretary-general Adviser. Japanese Government certainly worked hard and did a good job. I feel that the Prime Minister strengthened his recognition of the importance of the activities of NGO.
Photo 1 From left, with my staff members Hara kun and Ms. Sugiyama, Dr. Pablos-Mendes at the TICAD Conference
I also attended the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize ceremony and lectures of the prizewinners at the United Nations University on the next day, participated in the panel of "Action Wave" organizer Mr. Koji Omi, with the President of Rwanda and Professor Juma of Harvard University. Since I had just received the photograph of a lecture by Mr. Ito Ken of Tokyo University in Rwanda, I was inspired to start this panel with his story. Here also, many Japanese young people are working hard.
Photo 2 Dr. Ito teaching at Rwanda
In the excellent project of "one day chief editor" of Asahi Newspaper, Dr. Bono edited the newspaper of May 31, and discussed various topics such as Africa and TICAD and it was sparklingly different from regular newspaper. In addition, he wrote about Africa support program budget of Japan that was announced at TICAD.
