Kuwait, Japan potential partners in development assistance: Envoy

KUWAIT: On Monday, June 12, Ambassador of Japan to the State of Kuwait Yasunari Morino hosted an event of a special lecture featuring Prof. Hiroshi Kato, Vice-President of the International University of Japan and the former Senior Vice-President of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), who has more than 40 years’ experience of being engaged in the field of development assistance at JICA.

The event took place in collaboration between the embassy and JICA, with distinguished guests from Kuwait Fund For Arab Economic Development (KFAED), African embassies and international organizations based in Kuwait, with the aim of illuminating the future potentials of Japan-Kuwait cooperation for the world prosperity through the lecture by Professor Kato, which is titled “International Development Cooperation between Africa and Japan.” The event followed the lecture meeting hosted by KFAED on June 11.

In the beginning, Ambassador Morino gave opening remarks, in which he emphasized that development assistance toward Africa constitutes a major priority of Japan’s diplomacy, pointing out that Japan has consistently been organizing the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) every three years since 1993. Noting the presence of a representative from KFAED on the floor, Morino expressed his expectations on the potential for cooperation between Japan and Kuwait for the development in Africa and all over the world.

Following that, Professor Kato delivered a special lecture in which he explained the history and characteristics of Japan’s Official Development Assistance (ODA), especially pointing out three central ideas behind the Japanese development assistance: supporting the self-help efforts to achieve economic growth, respecting the role of the recipient governments, and avoiding any negative impacts of development projects.

The professor introduced successful cases of Japanese aid in Southeast Asian countries, emphasizing that the same approach is now applied in Africa with a lot of success. He also expressed his expectations that more and more African countries choose Japan as a trustworthy partner of development cooperation. The Q&A session witnessed a lively discussion between Professor Kato and the audience, for example, about the difference of development assistance approaches between Japan and other donor countries or organizations.

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