Science and Technology For Economic Development

International Partnership in Science and Technology for
Economic Development: Africa and Japan
The SASTeC Workshop
28 February 2006
Tokyo, Japan
Contents
The Southern African Science and Technology Community (SASTeC) ................3

1. Introduction............................................................................................................3
2. Objectives ..............................................................................................................3
3. Governance ............................................................................................................4
Programme ...................................................................................................................5
Highlights of the Workshop ........................................................................................6
Mr. Vuyani Lingela, Counsellor: Science and Technology, South African
Embassy – Programme Director ................................................................................8
H.E. Mr. Oscar Motswagae, Ambassador of Botswana – Welcoming Address........9
H.E. Mr. Roosevelt Gondwe, Ambassador of Malawi – Introduction ....................11
Mr. Kaname Nakano, Director General, JBIC – Working Models for Cooperation
between Africa and Japan ........................................................................................12
Mr. Wataru Nishigahiro, Director-General: Science Council of Japan, Cabinet
Office – Strategic Partnership in Science and Technology for Economic
Development: Opportunities for Africa and Japan ..................................................18
H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe, Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Japan and SADC ...............23
Mr. Dhesigen Naidoo, Deputy Director-General, Department of Science and
Technology – Partnership for Development: Opportunities for Africa and Japan ..26
H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia – Discussion Session.........36
H.E. Mr. Oscar Motswagae, Ambassador of Botswana...........................................38
H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe, Director-General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs..................39
H.E. Dr. Ben Ngubane, Ambassador of South Africa .............................................42
Mr. Yoshihiro Nakamura, Executive Director, Japan International Labour
Foundation (Former Ambassador of Japan to Zambia) ...........................................43
Mr. Naonobu Minato, Acting Director, IDRI, FASID ............................................44
H.E. Mr. Stuart Comberback, Ambassador of Zimbabwe .......................................45
H.E. Mr. Jean Christian Obame, Ambassador of Gabon .........................................46
H.E. Mr. Atsushi Hatakenaka, Senior Vice-President, JICA...................................48
H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe, Ministry of Foreign Affairs ...............................................51
H.E. Mr. Jean Christian Obame, Ambassador of Gabon .........................................54
H.E. Mr. Stuart Comberback, Ambassador of Zimbabwe .......................................57
H.E. Mr. Daniel Antonio, Ambassador of Mozambique – Question & Answer ..59
Technology ..............................................................................................................59
Mr. Koichi Hagiwara, Industrial Development Officer, UNIDO ............................62
H.E. Mr. Stuart Comberback, Ambassador of Zimbabwe – Closing Remarks...63
Contact Information: SASTeC Secretariat .............................................................68
20/09/06 - Final 2
The Southern African Science and Technology Community (SASTeC)
1. Introduction
The first African Ministerial Conference on Science and Technology held in South
Africa in November 2003 adopted an Outline of a Plan of Action for Science and
Technology. This Plan of Action contains 12 flagship programme areas and specific
policy issues which include the following: biodiversity; biotechnology; information
and communications technology; energy technologies; materials science; space
science and technologies; post harvest food technologies; water sciences and
technology; indigenous knowledge and technologies; desertification research; science
and technology for manufacturing; and laser technology.
The Ministerial Conference stressed that it is a priority for all African countries to
have comprehensive national science, technology and innovation policies with
emphasis on the development of effective National Systems of Innovation. The
Action Plan recommended all programmes of New Partnership for Africa’s
Development (NEPAD) to ensure that S&T are integral inputs in their
conceptualisation and implementation in order to accelerate progress along the
pathways for the realisation of Africa’s goals: job and wealth creation, poverty
reduction and environmental sustainability.
The 2nd AU/NEPAD Ministerial Conference on Science and Technology adopted the
Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action in Senegal in
September 2005. This Plan of Action consolidates science and technology
programmes of the African Union (AU) Commission and the NEPAD. It articulates
Africa’s common objectives and commitment to collective actions to develop and use
science and technology for the socio-economic transformation of the continent and its
integration into the world economy. It is erected on three interrelated conceptual
pillars. These are capacity building, knowledge production, and technological
innovation. This Plan of Action complements a series of other AU and NEPAD
programmes for such areas as agriculture, environment, infrastructure,
industrialization and education.
2. Objectives
Recalling the commitment of the Government of Japan, expressed by Prime Minister

Junichiro Koizumi where he said on 14 May 2003: “Now that NEPAD is in place,
Japan's basic policy on cooperation with Africa will be to support NEPAD through
the TICAD process, and to expand partnership for that purpose.”
The SADC Committee of Ambassadors in Japan established the Southern African

Science and Technology Community (SASTeC) on 31 January 2006 to fulfill the
following objectives.
(a) To increase flows of scientific knowledge and resources to Africa through

participation in joint programmes with Japan.
(b) To facilitate the participation of Africa as a significant player in the

international science and technology arena.
20/09/06 - Final 3
(c) To facilitate partnership in science and technology between African countries
and Japan.
3. Governance
SASTeC is composed of representatives of the Embassies of the Southern African

Development Community (SADC) member countries in Japan. The Member States
include Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Malawi,
Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, United Republic of Tanzania,
Zambia and Zimbabwe.
African Union
NEPAD NEPAD Secretariat
ECOWAS ECCAS SADC EAC IGAD
SADC Secretariat
Other Sectors S&T Sector Agriculture Infrastructure S&T Environment Others
SASTeC
SADC Committee of Senior Officials
SADC Committee of Ambassadors

Foreign Missions in Japan
Figure 1. Governance Structure of SASTeC
The Science and Technology Office, South African Embassy will serve as the
SASTeC Secretariat and assume the following responsibilities in consultation with the
SADC Committee of Senior Officials and the SADC Committee of Ambassadors.
(a) Organise events to enhance Africa’s S&T network in Japan
(b) Draft and distribute papers to members and stakeholders for meetings in
Japan
(c) Conduct research and distribute results to members and stakeholders to

advance the Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan of Action in
Japan
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Event: SASTeC Workshop on International Partnership in Science and
Technology for Economic Development: Africa and Japan
Date: 10h00 – 16h00, Tuesday, 28 February 2006
Place: Matsuya Saloon, 414 Zenkyoren Building, 2-7-9 Hirakawa-cho,
Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan, Tel: 03-3265-3201
Language: English and Japanese (simultaneous interpretation)
Sponsor: South African Embassy in Japan
Programme
10h05-10h10 Welcoming Address – H.E. Mr. Oscar Motswagae, Ambassador of

Botswana
10h10-10h15 Introduction – H.E. Mr. Roosevelt Gondwe, Ambassador of Malawi

10h15-10h40 Keynote Address – Mr. Kaname Nakano, Director General,
Development Assistance Department IV, Japan Bank for International
Cooperation (JBIC)
Working Models for Cooperation between Africa and Japan
10h40-11h00 Mr. Wataru Nishigahiro, Director-General: Science Council of Japan,
Cabinet Office, Japan
Strategic Partnership in Science and Technology for Economic
Development: Opportunities for Africa and Japan
11h00-11h15 Tea Break
11h15-11h35 H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe, Director-General, Ministry of Foreign
Affairs: Sub-Saharan African Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Japan
Japan and SADC
11h35-12h00 Mr. Dhesigen Naidoo, Deputy Director-General: International
Cooperation and Resources, Department of Science and Technology,
South Africa
Partnership for Development: Opportunities for Africa and Japan
12h00-13h30 Lunch
13h30-14h45 Discussion Session, Moderator – H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku,

Ambassador of Zambia
Sustainable Framework for Science and Technology Partnership
between Africa and Japan
14h45-15h00 Tea Break
15h00-15h55 Question and Answer Session, Moderator – H.E. Mr. Daniel Antonio,
Ambassador of Mozambique
15h55-16h00 Closing Remarks – H.E. Mr. Stuart Comberbach, Ambassador of

Zimbabwe
20/09/06 - Final 5
Highlights of the Workshop
“…when I have interviews with Ambassadors or officials from various countries, they
say, “Why Japanese companies cannot come to our countries more in order to make
foreign direct investments.” Mr. Kaname Nakano
“..the topic of the day is how to make use of science and technology for the use of
development and I think the concept of the role of science and technology for the
purpose of development is still a new thing.” Mr. Wataru Nishigahiro
“…quite often in developing countries, we have witnessed the case where the
protection of individual property rights is insufficient. That would undermine the
willingness of foreign investors to start business and that will, in turn, hinder the
possible transfer of technology. I know and I have heard the limit of the capacity of
most of the developing countries including the countries in Africa to establish the
appropriate system of the protection of individual property rights, but should it be the
case, together with the donor community we are prepared to extend our cooperation.”
H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe
“…by the time you reach to Japan, you’re completely green with envy because it’s
telling you that people in that part of the world have a very intimate understanding of
how technology affects their daily lives and how it affects their economies. And
because of that, it gets into the policy conversations, it gets into the resourcing and
budget conversations in governments and elsewhere, and creates a virtuous cycle.”
Mr. Dhesigen Naidoo
“When we think about the future cooperation between Japan and the member
countries of SADC we have to admit that there are different conditions prevailing in
each of the SADC member countries as well as each of the African countries. So, for
Japan, or I should say the Japanese government, would like to find out the appropriate
way of cooperation which fits into the actual condition in each of the African
countries.” H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe
“…for developing countries, there is a minimum level of technology capability that

has to be there if ODA is to produce sustainable results.” H.E. Dr. Ben Ngubane
“People today are not retiring. We are having people just die within two years of
service—five years, ten years—all the way right up into Cabinet. There is nobody
who is spared from this disease HIV-AIDS. So can we incorporate programs that will
promote these issues seriously?” H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku
“The most important thing I think, and JICA is thinking, is the commitment of the
people and of the government. In Japanese history we can show many examples; our
fathers, our grandfathers tried very hard for our own people. They tried to get the new
technologies from outside Japan. But the most important thing is that they tried to use
that technology for our own people. The commitment.” H.E. Mr. Atsushi Hatakenaka
“JICA has changed the working style after we got the new President, Madam Ogata. It
used to be that we approached development in Africa and other areas starting from
what we can offer. Taking consideration of our own experiences and history, we start
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from what we can offer Africa. But we have changed our approach 180 degrees. We
try to respond to the demands, “What do you need?” We like to get the information,
so your opinion, your observations, what you need for development. Then we think of
what we can offer. This is the new approach…In the past we were only approaching
the government, but sometimes governments don’t know, I’m sorry to say, the
conditions in rural areas; they just know the bureaucrats, the governments. But they
don’t know really what the community needs. So we approach the communities. But
not only the communities we have to talk to the governments—both sides.” H.E. Mr.
Atsushi Hatakenaka
“…I think through JBIC there is already a framework of preparation that we have
seen this morning. This framework needs to be well known by our institution in
Africa, by our businessman, so that we can really promote the joint venture between
Japanese companies and African companies with adequate funding, not only for ODA,
and also funding for promoting loan in business communities and so forth.” Mr. Jean
Christian Obame
“We as Embassies of Southern African countries have set up what we call the South
African Science and Technology Community (SASTeC), and our hope is to develop
programs that will strengthen partnership between our region and Japan in the area of
science and technology. But I must say, quite often it is difficult to work from the
distance of Japan with our people on the ground in Southern Africa… in your view,
how do you think we can make SASTeC a success? How do we link up people with
our people on the ground so that what we are doing here doesn’t just become a talk
show?” H.E. Mr. Oscar Motswagae
“It’s going to be very important for South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs to
input this in the Council of Ministers of SADC as an initiative that directly works with
TICAD in Japan by the SADC Ambassadors. Once the Ministers’ Council of SADC
adopts this as one of their mechanisms to work more closely with SADC, it’s going
to be more possible for us as SASTeC to work with MEXT, to work with Foreign
Affairs, to work with METI, on these very issues. And of course as the JICA Senior
Vice-President indicated, JICA, is open to hearing what hear as countries of SADC
want to see happen.” H.E. Dr. Ben Ngubane
“…for the past three TICAD, science and technology has probably not been very
much highlighted yet. I personally feel that we have a very nice platform towards the
goal to create very tangible output. And then, I would say this is about time for us to
create some kind of task force team to table a concrete proposal.” Mr. Koichi
Hagiwara
“Director General Nishigahiro’s explanation of how the various S&T institutions in

Japan coexist and cooperate not only within Japan, but externally on the international
stage, I think holds many lessons for us in Africa.” H.E. Mr. Stuart Comberback
20/09/06 - Final 7
Embassy – Programme Director
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your presence. An honorable guest
from South Africa from other parts of the world and friends of SASTeC, we
appreciate your presence this morning here. Just to make a quick introduction, my
name is Vuyani Lingela of the Counsellor for Science and Technology at the Embassy
of South Africa.
To start off this morning, I would like to express our sincere gratitude for your
presence and we hope that this will indeed be a fruitful meeting.
And to proceed then, I would request our honorable Ambassador Motswagae, the
Ambassador of Botswana to Japan to welcome us all on this occasion of the SASTeC
Workshop on International Partnership in Science and Technology for Economic
Development with a focus on Africa and Japan. Ambassador, please.
20/09/06 - Final 8
H.E. Mr. Oscar Motswagae, Ambassador of Botswana – Welcoming Address
Ladies and Gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to welcome you all to this important
workshop. We are most pleased that the Director General for Africa in the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Mr. Otabe, is here with us today. I also wish to recognize
Mr. Mori, Director, Second Africa Division and Mr. Tanabe, Deputy Director-General
of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We are happy to have you here. We also have
representatives of academic institutions, many of which have made significant
contributions to capacity building in our countries. Thank you very much for being
here with us. Some of you represent non-governmental institutions that have also
extended a helping hand to our countries and our Embassies on many occasions.
I’m also glad to see other Ambassadors from Africa. Thank you for supporting us.
We welcome and thank you all for being here with us today. Distinguished guests,
distinguished participants, there is no question that science and technology is essential
for sustainable development, for growth, and for poverty reduction. It is, therefore,
imperative that we do more and a lot more to strengthen cooperation between Africa
and Japan in the area of Science and Technology. This highlights the importance of
the theme of this workshop. International Partnership in Science and Technology for
Economic Development: Africa and Japan.
As SADC Ambassadors in Japan, we have adopted a new organizational structure to

enhance our capacity to carry out this agenda more effectively and efficiently. We
have established a Southern African Science and Technology Community, SASTeC,
to help us achieve the following objectives: To increase flow of science, of scientific
knowledge, and resources to Africa through partnership in joined programs with
Japan; To facilitate the participation of Africa as a significant player in the
international science and technology arena; and To facilitate partnership in science
and technology between African countries and Japan.
The government of Japan has demonstrated through bold wits and action that it is
committed to helping Africa create new opportunities for economic and social
development. The ball is therefore in our court as representatives of African countries
to come up with programs and strategies to enhance development cooperation with
Japan, taking advantage of the TICAD initiative and programs. Other partners such as
academic institutions, non-governmental organizations, and several society groups,
several of which are represented here at this workshop, are also important stake
holders. They can foster opportunities to involve our students and researchers in their
programs.
It is my hope that this workshop proves to be a positive and valuable experience for
all the participants. We should all share experiences and formulate ideas about long
term strategies for partnership in science and technology for sustainable economic
development. I can assure you that as SADC, we are committed to working with all
stake holders to achieve shared objectives and to learn from Japan’s trends and
experiences. We see SASTeC as a forum that will enable us to focus on the big
picture and to formulate ideas about long term strategies for cooperation.
It is imperative, therefore, if the workshop is to succeed, for its outcome to be

practical and implementable. It is crucial that it is a workshop of ideas, of proposals,
20/09/06 - Final 9
and action for change. We should dispense of the notion that Africa is predestined to
failure. Yes, many of our countries are yet to see the benefits of advances in science
and technology, but the success of countries around the world, in Asia and elsewhere,
is living proof that Africa too can do likewise.
I have no doubt that each of the presenters will provide valuable input for us to
identify measures to support concrete commitment to move ahead with this important
agenda.
Let me conclude my remarks by thanking our host, His Excellency Ambassador

Ngubane. Your Excellency, we are impressed by your leadership and commitment to
the modernization of the economies of African countries. We thank you very much
for taking the leadership in our group to propose this initiative, the idea of SASTeC,
by hosting it.
It’s a sign that you are committed to leading us and committed to ensuring that other
countries and African countries benefit from the experience of Japan in the area of
science and technology. And I wish to thank you very much on behalf of all my
colleagues. Thank you very much.
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Embassy
Thank you very much Ambassador for the uplifting address. I will now request
honorable Ambassador Roosevelt Gondwe, Ambassador of Malawi, who will
introduce to us why we are gathering here this morning. And now to request to
Ambassador. Please Ambassador.
H.E. Mr. Roosevelt Gondwe, Ambassador of Malawi – Introduction
Your Excellencies. The Chairperson of the Committee of Southern African

Ambassadors, the Ambassador of Botswana, His Excellency Oscar Motswagae, the
Director-General of Sub-Saharan African Affairs, Mr. Otabe, the Director-General for
the Science Council of Japan, the Director-General for Assistance Department for the
Japan Bank for International Operation, the Director-General for International
Cooperation in the Department of Science and Technology in South Africa.
Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
It’s a great honor for me to be given this opportunity this morning to make a short
introductory remark on this important workshop. Let me start by stating the
importance which the African Ambassadors in Tokyo put on the Southern Africa
Science and Technology Community (SASTeC). Our leaders in the region, through
the first African Conference on Science and Technology, held in South Africa in
November 2003, and also the African Conference on Science and Technology in
Senegal in 2005, recognized the importance of developing comprehensive and
innovative science and technology policies.
At these meetings, our leaders in the region have continuously emphasized their
commitment to collective action in developing and using science and technology for
the social economic transformation of our continent. And by coincidence, the Prime
Minister of Japan, Junichiro Koizumi, has also indicated his commitment and Japan’s
commitment to the expansion of partnership with Africa. We, the Ambassadors of
SADC, therefore, have used the directions of our leaders and their commitment and
the pledges by the Prime Minister of Japan to establish this unique mechanism called
the Southern Africa Science and Technology Community, (SASTeC).
The objectives of SASTeC have already been mentioned by the previous speaker. I
should state that they are quite ambitious. It is our desire that at this workshop,
however discussions which will bring Japan and SADC closer in order to achieve
those goals. I have to recognize that in this room, we have been honored with the
presence of very high level dignitaries from Japan. And it is my honor on behalf of
my colleagues; to thank all of them for their support in our efforts.
Your Excellencies, the chairperson and other distinguished guests, thank you for your
attention.
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Embassy
Thank you very much His Excellency for your presentation and introduction. Our
next speaker, presenting a keynote address this morning, Mr. Kaname Nakano. He is
the Director-General for Development Assistance Department of the Japan Bank for
International Cooperation. And from his presentation, we expect to learn what works
and what does not work. He will present some practical examples to stimulate our
thinking on the way forward in order to enhance cooperation between Africa and
Japan beyond the borders of SADC, to extend our corporation in total to the African
sphere and beyond science and technology to improve the welfare of all.
Thank you very much, sir. Thank you.
Mr. Kaname Nakano, Director General, JBIC – Working Models for

Cooperation between Africa and Japan
Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is my great honor and pleasure to be able
to deliver a speech in front of such distinguished guests. As I am being introduced, I
am the Director-General in charge of African countries at JBIC and maybe I will use
handouts. I think all of you have already got handouts so I would like to make an
intervention by using handouts that I delivered to all of you.
And this morning, I would like to touch up on what we are doing or thinking for the
purpose of assistance for African countries. I would like to touch up on some concrete
examples, in the past or even ongoing, which we feel successful for the economic and
social development of the country of the region,
First, I would like to briefly touch upon what we are and first page, Status. As some of
you might already know, what we are about, we are a governmental agency
established in 1999 by integrating two institutions. One is former Exporting Bank of
Japan and the other is Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund. By integrating these
two institutions, our role is to promote and to execute Japan’s external economic
policy as well as economic cooperation. And some of you might hear from the news
that, by the initiative of the Prime Minister, Mr. Koizumi, the administrative reform is
being undertaken and it is my understanding that the conclusion will come out early
next month. But, in spite of all, it is our understanding and conviction as well as our
sincere hope that no change will be made as to the role and function that we are
playing and according to the report even the name JBIC will remain.
But the important is that whatever the form of the organization might be, the role and
function that we’re playing is considered to be important not only for Japan, but also
to the development of the world economy, and society. Therefore, we would like to
continue our work.
Next, as I mentioned earlier, we have two pillars within the organization. One is what
we call IFO, International Financial Operation. That is to promote Japanese exports
and/or imports, as you might know, each OECD country has this kind of institution to
promote their own exports. But when you say export, it’s not the export of consumer
goods, but rather the export of plants, and other kinds of capital goods. Therefore,
that export normally enhance, promote the economy of the receiving countries.
20/09/06 - Final 12
Another role is to promote Japanese activities overseas mainly for indirect
investments and, needless to say, that serves for not only Japanese companies, but
also that will serve for the economic development of recipient countries.
The other pillar is what we call OECO, Overseas Economic Cooperation Operation.
That is classified as ODA but I will elaborate on technical details, but in short, this
operation is softer in terms of interest rate, duration of the loan, etc. So that is
classified as ODA.
Next page, I would like to briefly touch up on what we have been doing in African
countries total operations and accumulative total commitment so far is something
about 5 trillion yen, that’s more than 40 billion US dollars equivalent. That is the end
of March last year. So, of course, this fiscal year we are doing another commitment,
so the number is increasing.
And next page. This page illustrates Japan’s policy for African development and, a
distinguished colleague from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs might elaborate on this
so I would like to be brief on this, but what we would like to stress on here is that as
philosophy of Japanese assistance, we regard the ownership of each recipient country
as the key factor. And as I explain to you later on, without the ownership of a
recipient country, we feel that any assistance aid will not be successful in its real
meaning.
And one more thing that I would like to touch up on is the third sentence of
strategically expansion of ODA. As you already know, Japanese government made a
commitment to double ODA to African countries in the next coming three years. But
within that framework, our bank, of course, would like to make maximum efforts.
But one of them is to implement what we call EPSA, Enhanced Private Sector
Assistance for Africa in partnership with African development bank. I will touch
upon this later on a little bit more in detail.
Next page, I would like to explain medium terms strategy of OECO. This is, as I told
you, classified as ODA for African region. And of course, poverty reduction is one of
the important goals for assistance. But as you could understand from my explanation,
since our role is to extend credit to those countries, therefore we are very much keen
on the status of the debt of each recipient country. And, as you know, many of the
countries are suffering from heavy indebtedness. Therefore we would like to address
these issues. But as you know, Japanese government also made an initiative to cancel
some of the existing debts for what we call HIPC (Highly Indebted Poverty Countries),
that is important momentum for our intervention because of those debt problems, we
were not able to extend new credits but, because of that initiative, we feel that we can
resume new operations even for those countries. Not to mention those countries those
do not have debt problems.
I would like to stress that in any event, our loans will be given to those countries that
have relatively good solvency. Otherwise, in any event, our assistance is in the form
of the loan. But this is a very important element. Loans must be repaid. In order to
repay the loan, the country must be solvent and self sufficient in that sense. Therefore,
as I mentioned earlier, ownership of each country is very much important. And in
20/09/06 - Final 13
order to solve those problems such as debt problems or poverty, we would use
modernity to increase social and economic infrastructure.
Of course there are a number of modalities or tools to address issue but we strongly
feel without development, it is, in the end, very difficult to solve all the problems such
as poverty. Therefore, we put most importance to the increase of social and economic
infrastructure, such as roads, railways, energy, of course electricity, and
telecommunications, etc.
One more thing is that, as I underlined here, the development of private sector is also
important for the success of economic development of the country. As I mentioned
earlier, under the whole framework initiated by the Japanese government, we would
like to start what we call EPSA initiative for Africa. Within the upcoming 5 years, we
committed ourselves to extend new credits totaling 1 billion US dollars equivalent
with the corporation of the African Development Bank and there are main 5 targeted
areas.
They are improvements in investment climate, strengthening the financial sector,

improvements in economic and social infrastructure, and support for small and
medium sized enterprises, and promotion of trade and for indirect investment. As you
can see from these 5 targeted areas, we feel the promotion of so called private sector
is very much important for the success of future economic and social development of
the region. Actually, I went to Tunis, the headquarter of the African Development
Bank, last month to sign the framework agreement and we are now under formulating
new projects in collaboration with the African Development Bank.
Maybe I better mention the first loan to be granted. Our team is working very hard to
sign the loan agreement for Senegal for the construction of road project between
Senegal and Dakar and Bamaco of Mali and hopefully we would like to sign the loan
agreement next month. This will be the first project but, of course, there are a number
of pipeline projects and we would like to accelerate our activities in order to meet our
commitment as I mentioned: one billion dollars within 5 years.
Next steps to be taken. What is meant is that how to tackle or how I would like to
touch up on this strategy for enhancing or implementing our activities for the support
of the region.
First, of course, we have to identify priority countries. But from our point of view, as
I reiterate, since our assistance is in the form of a loan, even if it is a very
concessional, I mean soft and favorable one, therefore, debt sustainability of the
recipient country is an important element.
Next criteria are what we call CPIA which means Country Policy and Institutional
Assessment. In short, the governments and various economic indicators must be
sound and stable.
Thirdly, since we are bilateral donor, relationship with Japan, not only in economic
terms but also in social, cultural, in many senses, is also important. Frankly
speaking, our establishment is very much limited and, unfortunately, we do not have
as many offices as other institutions have in the region. Therefore, we would like to
20/09/06 - Final 14
cooperate with other donors or agencies such as JICA, African Development Bank,
World Bank, etc. And therefore, we would like to strengthen our capacity. And also,
one of the key elements for successful implementation of our operation in the region
is that to find out a project which will serve not only for the recipient country itself
but the overall regional development. The reason is simple because the size of the
economy of each recipient country is not that big. What we call ‘scale of economy’ is
very much important. We would like to find out that kind of project that serves for
development of all regions. Therefore, we would like to collaborate with NEPAD.
Actually, I understand the Secretary General of NEPAD is coming early next month.
We would like to have an intense discussion with them to enhance our collaboration.
And when we say types of loans, I just briefly mention we are now under review for
the possibility of extending new credit to Tanzania in collaboration with the World
Bank. That will be in the form of co-financing with Poverty Reduction Support Credit,
what we call PRSC. This is not a traditional project type lending but it’s sometimes
very important not only to know the project itself but rather the overall framework
policy of the country as well as the overall development strategy of the country.
Therefore, we would like to enter this kind of cooperation with the World Bank by
enhancing the assistance effect of each project.
Next page shows us things which are a little bit different from what I’ve been
explaining. That is when I have interviews with Ambassadors or officials from
various countries, they say, “Why Japanese companies cannot come to our countries
more in order to make foreign direct investments.” And I have to say that we are
subject to the opinions of Japanese companies. But some Japanese companies are
very much cautious and, therefore, without knowing the market very well, their speed
for direct investment is rather slow, I have to admit. But there are some of the key
elements or factors in order for the promotion of foreign direct investments. That is
because this is clearly shown by the review and study made by our bank. Our bank,
undertakes the study and interviews with various Japanese companies for the
possibility of foreign direct investment in the world. Not only African countries. And
we’ve been asking them, “What are the key elements for foreign direct investment?”
Their answers are four key elements.
 One of them, the first one is growth potential as a market. Of course, they look
at the market itself. Not only for the country itself.
 The second element is, of course, inexpensive labor force and human resources.
But this is not all for the decision for foreign direct investment or incentive for
the direct investment.
 The third one, transparent and stable operations in legal system are very much
important. Our bank now has undertaken in Asian countries for the study of this
kind of legal system and we are making advices to companies as well as host
governments. But I would like to stress on this point. It is very important since,
in particular Japanese companies, direct investment is a long-term view.
Therefore, stableness of a legal system or framework is very much important.
20/09/06 - Final 15
 And the fourth one is, not to mention, the infrastructure is very much important.
Therefore, as I mentioned earlier, we would like to put very much importance to
the promotion of various infrastructure projects.
And next, I would like to touch up on concrete examples on what I’ve been doing in
the region.
When we say Africa region, we include, of course, North African countries. So maybe
you have another handout about our project in Tunisia. “Description on World Study
of Science and Technology Pact Development Project.” Last year, we signed a loan
agreement which amounts to some eight billion Japanese yen for Tunisia. And we are
now working to start implementation of this project. I think this project is somewhat
unique in the sense that of course we are undertaking many projects for the scientific
and technological support, but this one is for the purpose of development. What we
call ‘Technology Park’, in Japanese, we say ‘Techno Park’ in Tunisia. Some of you
might already know that there is a university called Tsukuba in Ibaragi prefecture.
Our idea is to create this kind of complex in Tunisia. And we would like to invite
some of the excellent students from Tunisia to Japanese distinguished universities for
the study. And we will start this program from this year on, and with advice of some
of Japanese university people as well as technical people.
Tunisian government is now implementing this project by constructing a new

complex in Tunisia. And our idea is to diversify the economic structure of the
country. But it’s not that easy task. Therefore, our idea is to establish this kind of
complete complex. But, of course, to construct buildings is one thing but we need
software. Therefore, as I mentioned, we would like to try to invite good students from
the country to have further immersion in technology and science area. And this is a
very unique and new project, so of course we have to do much more things. It is our
sincere hope that this will be a successful case. And if it’s the case, of course we
would like to expand this kind of experiment to other countries.
One more concrete example, this is the last one, but again I hope you could look at the
very last page of my handout. “Supporting Japanese companies’ business
development overseas” Many of you may have already known this project but we’ve
been supporting an aluminum smelter plant project in Mozambique. The project is
called: Mozal Project. This entire region is very rich in natural resources, but maybe
they need capital as well as some technology in order to exploit these natural
resources. But at the same time, Japan almost does not have natural resource at all.
Not to mention oil but also other minerals, etc. Therefore, there is a good
collaboration, the possibility for collaboration between two countries or regions. And
our bank is trying to support the efforts undertaken by those two partners.
In the case of Mozambique, as you might know, Mitsubishi Corporation is one of the
stake-holders in the project, together with World Bank Group, supported this project
in the form of what we call “project finance”. In other words, when we used project
finance key, it is a rather sophisticated financing technology. We do not ask the
guarantee from the host government, but, rather, we would like to use the cash flow of
generated after the construction of the project. Of course there are a number of
security package, needed for this kind of technology. But, since ultimately this kind of
product produce a good cash flow, we would like to enhance this kind of operations in
20/09/06 - Final 16
other products as well. So this is financial technology. So in using this type of
financial technologies for the host countries to increase or enhance the product which
otherwise might not be viable. And there’s awful intervention but in any event we
would like to try to open our door so that we would have much closer contact with
people form other countries.
I myself will go to Namibia from tomorrow to finalize negotiations for new land. And
it is my hope that we would like to sign a loan agreement by the end of the next fiscal
month. This will be the first inland to Namibia. Japanese government has already
made a commitment but we are under negotiations with the terms of the loan
agreement. But this is for the road construction project but in any event we would like
to identify a good project by using various channels but as I mentioned earlier our
staff members are limited and we like to do maximum efforts. You are more than
welcome to have any kind of questions or inquiries etcetera. Thank you very much.
20/09/06 - Final 17
Embassy
Thank you very much to Mr. Nakano for this presentation. As we have mentioned
earlier we will request Mr. Nishigahiro, Director General of the Science Council of
Japan to give insight on science and technology efforts for economic development.
Mr. Wataru Nishigahiro, Director-General: Science Council of Japan, Cabinet

Office – Strategic Partnership in Science and Technology for Economic
Development: Opportunities for Africa and Japan
Well good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you very much for your introduction.
Ambassador Ngubane has taken a very important initiative to start a group of
Southern Africa Science and Technology Community. I’m very glad that Mr. Otabe,
my good friend in the foreign ministry is also giving a presentation here and he’s
going to concentrate on the globalization and energy affair as I heard from him.
I would rather concentrate myself on today’s topic of science and technology and
especially how the establishment plays different roles of the organization in relation
with science and technology interacting each other and also the basic orientation of
the science policy of Japan. I find that, to start with, the previous speaker from the
JBIC was very interesting. I used to do exactly that kind of work in the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs. Especially in those days around the year 2000, about 5 or 6 years ago,
when Mrs. Claire Short of the UK was very active. She wanted to concentrate all the
ODA toward poverty aspect to fight against poverty and we, because of the ODA
policy of which was outlined by the representative of the JBIC, I was fighting very
hard against her. We thought that in order to alleviate poverty, economic growth is
important and for the purpose of economic growth infrastructure is necessary.
Especially a later period in the more recent days, I’m very much convinced about that
because of my experiences in India until last year
Many people talk about China and India these days. But between China and India
there is a discrepancy of development about 20 to 30 years because of lack of
infrastructure. In Delhi, even in a hotel like this, electricity goes off all of a sudden.
You have to continue the talk as if nothing has happened. That is quite easy if you are
accustomed to living in India for 3 months or one year but immediately after returning
from Japan back to India, I found it awfully difficult to adjust myself to this way of
life. What India needs for the moment is water, electricity, roads, lots of infrastructure
so the infrastructure parts that Mr. Nakano was talking about is very important.
But the new aspect is what you are doing today that when we talk with other
colleagues and scientists in various meetings. Nowadays, the topic of the day is how
to make use of science and technology for the use of development and I think the
concept of the role of science and technology for the purpose of development is still a
new thing. That is what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, especially Mr. Otabe’s
Bureau and also the Economic Cooperation Bureau headed by Mr. Sato. They are
supposed to tackle this new aspect of science and technology. I have just distributed
the resume in Japanese, but for those people who understand English, I would like to
mention the outline of my talk first. Firstly, I’ll talk about some of the bodies in our
country dealing with science and technology policy. After that, I will mention about
20/09/06 - Final 18
the G8 activities, the G8 framework, followed by the science and technology policy of
Japan and finally I will cover its relationship with Africa.
Firstly, I would like to explain some of the institutions and organizations which deal
with science and technology in our country. There are many, the four bodies in
addition to the traditional ministries, Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science
and Technology [MEXT], International Economy and Trade, that kind of ministry.
But at the same time there are four main bodies, involving themselves in the science
policy. There is firstly Japan Academy which is abbreviated as JA. When you came
through downstairs you saw the sign that is a different JA, the Japan Agriculture. The
JA I’m talking about is the Japan Academy, JA, which is located in Ueno. And this
one is mainly the honorary body. The Members are very limited and those who made
a very big contribution to the development of science to our country are selected, and
provided with the pension. So, the problem with this organization institute is that it’s
of a very high dignity that most of the members are too old to make overseas travel.
So, this is the JA.
And another one is the JSPS, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. This is
also like JA, governed by the Ministry of Education. The main goal of JSPS is to
distribute the subsidy money among the scientist. It’s an organization that has money.
As the remaining two; the Science Council of Japan (SCJ) and the Council for
Science and Technology Policy (CSTP). These belong to the Cabinet Office and
responsible to report to the Prime Minister, Chief of Cabinet and relevant parties.
Before going into Science Council of Japan, I will talk about the CSTP. It is a Council.
In our country, the decision on the basic policy of science is made by the CSTP. The
CSTP is composed of 15 members including Prime Minister. Prime Minister chairs
the meeting. Actually they meet once a month and it just happens that today later in
the afternoon, there is a CSTP meeting headed by Prime Minister Koizumi. I have to
go there. The 7 persons out of 15 are Cabinet Ministers and remaining 8 persons are
scientists. They represent various aspects of science, both human and natural sciences.
That is CSTP and our president, the President of the Science Council of Japan,
currently Dr. Kiyoshi Kurokawa, is a member of CSTP. Our head is an ex-official
member of CSTP. So that is how CSTP is composed. The Science Council of Japan is
composed of 210 members including various aspects of science, not only the sciences
like physics and engineering but also human and social studies aspect of sciences.
This body of 210 has got three main purposes of activities that I will mention here.
Firstly to come up with proposals. It’s an advisory body. We can make proposals,
advisory opinions, to the decision-makers and also the public at large on whatever
subject we choose. So, that is important aspects of ours. Secondly, providing the
forum for the scientists to exchange interdisciplinary exchanges is important so that
they can get inspiration and come up with new ideas. The third aspect of our activity
is to increase the awareness of the role of sciences to the general public. And so the
relationship with the community is an important aspect when it comes to it.
All these three areas of activities are not limited to the domestic activities in our
country. The international aspect of our activities play an is important role in our
activities. Talking about international activities, it does not only include advisory role,
providing the forum and also the increase awareness, but we give opinions to the UN
and all these we do as a part of the main activities.
20/09/06 - Final 19
I will mention here the G8 activities. The G8 framework is very important in our
country. When I go to United States, or to Europe, when I talk about the summit, they
wonder what summit it is because to them there are too many summits. There are
European Summit, i.e. European Council Summit, NATO summit, OECD Summit,
but in our country when people talk about summit, there is only one summit, the G8
summit. So, G8 framework is very important in our process. That is the only forum in
our country which provides the established framework for regular consultation of
foreign policy, except the UN. And last year because of the initiative which Tony
Blaire, the British Prime Minister has taken, we started the G8 science council
activities. Immediately before the Gleneagles Summit, and so just about one month
before the actual summit in July, in June we came up with policy recommendations
that I have distributed about the G8 summit. The handout has English text in here and
when you open it, it got Japanese text in-between. Last year, in G8 activities, science
councils came up with a proposal to be taken into account in the actual G8 summit
meeting.
So we came up with two proposals, one regarding global warming and climate change.
Mr. Otabe is going to mention more in detail about this one, another one is the Joint
Science Academy’s statement for African development. This text attaches importance
on the role of science and technology for the purpose of development. This is not a
quite new phenomenon starting from last year but as it says here, science and
technology innovation was a familiar issue to the 2000 in Okinawa G8 leaders, and
they established a task force to address the global digital divide. Another task force
was established on water in 2003 in Evian Summit. I would especially like to draw
your attention to the final sentence of this statement which says that G8 should
continue to keep the development of science and technology and innovation capacity
on the G8 agenda in the forthcoming years, therefore, not only last year but G8
countries are starting to tackle the issue of on the role of science and technology for
the development of Africa in the coming years. This year G8 Summit is going to be
hosted by president Putin of Russia and it’s going to be held in St. Petersburg in July.
So we in the process of coming up with our proposals, joint proposals among the G8
on the issues to be discussed in St. Petersburg.
This year as we understand that Russia and other G8 members are going to
concentrate on energy security firstly. Secondly on infectious diseases including avian
flu, and thirdly on education. These three items seem to going to be the agenda and
we are in the process of preparing our joint document on the first and the second item
that is energy and infectious disease. What Japan, our Science Council of Japan and
other members of the science council want to see is that continuation of this process
for the next year and the coming years. After this year’s G8 Summit in Russia, the
next G8 summit is going to be held in Germany in 2007. Then, the year of 2008, it is
going to be held in Japan. So, for this joint initiative, we at the Science Council of
Japan, have to manage and take initiative to come up with a statement.
Another aspect that I would like to mention is our country’s science and technology
policy. We have quite a new change just about ten years ago in 1995. Before, most of
the initiative and decision-making was done based on the findings of various
ministries such as Ministry of International Trade and Industry (METI) in 2001), and
Science Agency (*former MEXT). About ten years ago, we introduced a system of
20/09/06 - Final 20
Cabinet Office to take initiative to coordinate the science policies of various
ministries. So in that year, 1995, the Basic Law on science and Technology Policy
was decided on. And the way that the Cabinet Office does the work is that first they
agree, and then enable itself with the new law enacting in the parliament. Based on
that, they will establish a panel and then come up with a proposal which they call a
Basic Plan. Normally it covers a period for five years, so it is Five Years Basic Plan.
Because it has been established ten years ago, this is our final year of our second
phase and we are going to enter the third phase in starting from April.
So the third phase of the Basic Plan is in place and there the aspect which is stressed
upon is internationalized policy and places more emphasis on the human development
in order to face the mega competition with scientific development with other countries
like China, Korea and others. Nowadays we do not only have to compete with the
United States or Europe but also China and Korea. So, human development aspect is
very much stressed.
Some of you might have seen the Prime Minister making a policy speech in the
parliament towards the end of January. That’s the first day of the parliamentary
session. Normally in the first day of the parliamentary session, the Prime Minister
gives a policy speech. In that policy speech he mentioned the importance of role of
science and technology for the purpose of growth and in harmony with environment
and protection. This year, in the 5-year plan that we have just adopted the Basic Plan,
the Government has decided three hundred billion dollars in five years to be allocated
for the purpose of science and technology.
Now, I would like to mention a little bit about Africa in the context of science policy.
As far as my experiences in the Foreign Ministry is concerned, I should like to
mention the role of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development,
TICAD. The TICAD process for us was very important. I was working at the UN
from 1997 till 1999. Our mission was to increase the awareness of the TICAD. In
those days, there were two key words such as JBIC representing was mentioning,
which were “ownership” and “partnership.” From the viewpoint of ownership,
African ownership, we are very glad that NEPAD was created and now in its place to
take lead and it’s keeping close in touch, closer in coordination with the TICAD
process.
Another aspect of which is important is that Millennium Development Goals (MDG)

which was decided in the year 2000 in the UN. Our Prime Minister in those days was
Mr. Yoshiro Mori and Mr. Mori went there. It’s got a very concrete target like
decreasing the poverty by half in 2015 and globally. That is also the area which I
worked very hard and I liked it because this had very much to do with the basic ODA
policy. In the period before the Cold War, before 1991, there was an incentive to
provide a certain level of ODA and there’s a motivation for ODA but after the end of
the Cold War, we need to have a new motivation. And we were working on the way
of New Strategy for economic development which eventually led to our Millennium
Development Goals. So the concept of MGD has a longer period of history. Of course
in the past few years as Africa has been receiving lots of attention in their way to
achieve the goal targets in MGD. But as a person who used to live in India for three
and a half years, I should like to say that Asia is also poor. So together with Africa,
India has to be tackled with in order to achieve MGD.
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Finally, I would like to mention one word about IAC, Inter-Academy Council. This is
a fairly newly-created body, created about five years ago and it is an organization
among the scientists. Just about one month ago, there was a general assembly in
Amsterdam where an introduction study on Africa’s capacity building and also, the
rural development in Africa were presented. Nowadays in this framework we are
doing a new study on energy. It’s going to be a comprehensive study including the
alternative energy resources. The IAC is providing another report recently. That is a
relatively shorter report on the role of women in science.
One special thing I would like to share with you in that Amsterdam meeting is that
about 30 presidents of African Academies were invited in the IAC General Assembly.
They were there to share the knowledge and also to share capacity-building methods.
On the role of science and technology for the purpose of development, this concept is
increasing its awareness and it is being promoted and widely shared. I should like to
continue to farther this concept. Thank you very much.
20/09/06 - Final 22
Embassy
Thank you very much Mr. Nishigahiro for enlightening us on this issue and very
important institutions in Japan, facilitating partnerships in science and technology.
Now I will like to request his Excellency Ambassador Otabe. Ambassador Otabe is
also the Director General of the Sub-Saharan Africa in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
He will highlight areas that are of importance for cooperation between Africa and
Japan. Thank you very much.
H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe, Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Japan and SADC
Well thank you very much. Excellencies, Ambassadors ladies and gentlemen, good
morning.
First of all I would like to commend the initiative taken by the Ambassadors of SADC.
Especially the leadership shown by Ambassador Ngubane for organizing this
workshop. It’s a great pleasure for me to be here today to share with you some of my
thoughts about the possible cooperation between Japan and countries in Africa
including, in particular the countries in SADC. Also I would like to congratulate on
the initiative of SASTeC in Tokyo. Already there has been some explanation about
Japan’s policy for African development by Mr. Nakano and we’ve heard the policy
framework of Japan’s science and technology as well as the aspects of the
international cooperation by Mr. Nishigahiro. So I would like to make my
presentation as short as possible because we have a guest from South Africa today,
Deputy Director General Mr. Naidoo. I learned that he came to Tokyo just to attend
this meeting. In fact I learned that he just arrived yesterday and he will be leaving
tomorrow. So, in order to give him enough time, I’ll limit myself to just several points.
First, regarding the state of cooperation between Japan and African countries in
particular, SADC in the area of science and technology. Bilateral basis for Japan we
have the governmental agreement with South Africa for cooperation in science and
technology. Under the agreement between Japan and South Africa, we have started
the cooperation in such area as exchange of experts under the program of the Japan
Society of Promotion of Science. We also have started joint research activities in the
area of biotechnology and in high temperature applications. I should confess that I am
no expert in these areas so I have to refrain myself from going into detail of the
specific contents of the cooperation that we have started to undertake. However, I
would like to announce that under this agreement we have established a joint
committee and we’re going to have the second meeting this year. I hope maybe in
May or June, I have to discuss with Mr. Naidoo regarding the specific time of the
meeting. Although this is the bilateral agreement between Japan and Africa, I do hope
that the progress made in bilateral cooperation will benefit not only Japan and South
Africa but other countries in SADC.
Now, let me turn on to the role of science and technology in several serious areas,
namely in energy and environment policy area. First of all, I would like to stress what
someone already mentioned that in order to achieve the sustainable development, not
only in the SADC countries but globally as well, there has to be a credible energy
policy as well as development policy in place. This is the case for my country, Japan,
20/09/06 - Final 23
as well. Regarding energy policy, we know there are many producing countries and
many energy-rich countries in Africa. At the same time there are many countries in
Africa like in Japan that are without any energy resources. Given that situation, I think
energy security is crucial for sustainable development to be achieved. Especially in
view of the very high oil prices that we are witnessing today. Unfortunately, we aren’t
expecting to see the reverse of this trend in the coming few years although we are
going to discuss this matter in a very serious manner at the coming G8 Summit in St.
Petersburg as Mr. Nishigahiro has just explained to us. In the face of this situation, I
think the improvement of energy efficiency as well as introduction and the
development of the energy saving and the development of the alternative resources
energy should be further promoted. In this regard, science and technology has a vital
role to play. In fact, this country, Japan, is heavily dependent on import of energy
resources including oil and we have witnessed about 20, 30 years ago the oil crisis.
We have succeeded in overcoming the very bitter experiences of this oil crisis.
That’s not only because of the basic plan that the government had introduced, but also
because of the high level of technology that we managed to overcome those very
severe experiences. Regarding environmental policy, there are various aspects of
environment policy, including, in particular, the policy to tackle global warming,
forest protection, so forth. But in general, environmental policy should be carried out
in a very harmonious manner with overall policy objectives of the government, which
would include economic policy and energy policy. In other words, we should see to it
that economic growth, energy security, and environment protection should be
designed and implemented in a compatible manner. Sometimes it’s not an easy job to
obtain these three objectives at once, especially the obtainment of economic growth
and the protection of environment protection. These sometimes hinder each other. So
to find a breakthrough for the achievement of these three objectives, which in Japan
we call the Three Es, energy security, environment protection and economic growth, I
think the introduction of the innovative technology should be further developed. And
these are the very topics that we need for the framework of G8 as well as in our
discussion in the framework of the International Energy Agency.
Lastly, for the development of science and technology in Africa including SADC
countries. Needless to say, a transfer of technology among the private sectors is of
utmost importance. There has been some explanation by Mr. Nakano a moment ago
about the necessity of formulating a transparent and credible legal system in African
countries to attract investment. But for my part, I’d like to stress the importance of
having better protection of individual property rights. Quite often in Africa, not only
in Africa, maybe, but quite often in developing countries, we have witnessed the case
where the protection of individual property rights is insufficient. That would
undermine the willingness of foreign investors to start business and that will, in turn,
hinder the possible transfer of technology. I know and I have heard the limit of the
capacity of most of the developing countries including the countries in Africa to
establish the appropriate system of the protection of individual property rights, but
should it be the case, together with the donor community we are prepared to extend
our cooperation.
I was planning to speak with you the very framework of TICAD as well as what we
are going to do within that framework. But, as Mr. Nishigahiro has already explained
the very nature of TICAD, I would just like to say that Japan together with the
20/09/06 - Final 24
countries in Africa, the countries of SADC, would like to cooperate with you in
various areas including the area of science and technology in the framework of
TICAD. We are going to host the next TICAD meeting in the year 2008. I haven’t
decided the very topics to be discussed during that conference, but maybe some
elements of science and technology could be integrated in our discussion. I do hope
the meeting today and debate we are going to have from now on, will give us a new
emphasis as well as give us with some insight for the future cooperation between
Japan and SADC and I’m happy to announce that next week we are going to have the
visit of the head of SADC to Japan as well as the head of NEPAD, which will make
us quite busy, but we would like to continue discussion with them on the basis of the
discussion we are going to have today. Thank you very much.
20/09/06 - Final 25
Embassy
Thank you very much, his Excellency, Ambassador Otabe. Now it is Mr. Naidoo’s
opportunity to address us. Mr. Naidoo is the Deputy Director-General of International
Cooperation and Resources in the Department of Science and Technology. And we
welcome. Thank you, sir.

Technology – Partnership for Development: Opportunities for Africa and Japan
Excellency and Ambassador Gondwe, our host today and our former Minister for
Science and Technology in South Africa, further Ambassadors from SADC, our
colleagues from Japan, both from the science institutions as well as the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, Ladies and gentlemen, warm greetings from the south and I guess
you need that in Tokyo. I can give you one point of solace that it is as rainy in the
south as it is here. Just a few remarks before I start with my talk.
Firstly, it’s very gratifying as an officer in science and technology to be able to see in
the same conversation people from Foreign Affairs Ministries. It’s very unusual in
most places in the world and we know that that link is very necessary and very
profound. So it’s particularly pleasing to see all the Southern African Ambassadors
and, indeed, representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Japan.
Secondly, to offer the congratulations from Pretoria to this grouping of people who
formed, I think, an incredible institution in the form of SASTeC. The link between
science and technology for development dealing with both the quality of life aspects
as well as our own necessity to become more and more competitive in a globalized
world is actually key. And then just before I start, and I’ll talk about my outline just
now, a few points of progress in the SADC sector that I think are worth noting as an
update from our partnership forum that we had here in Japan last year. One is that we
now have GDP spent targets for R&D in Southern Africa that is quite profound.
South Africa’s own target for 1% GDP spent on R&D is 2008, Zimbabwe, in the same
timeframe, has a target of 1.5% GDP spend. It gives you an indication of the kind of
conversation that’s now happening in the cabinets in Southern Africa. And I think Mr.
Nakano would be pleased to hear because he put down the factors that were affecting
Japanese sentiment for foreign direct investment. Our Minister of Finance, in his
budget vote a week and a half ago in South Africa, announced that there would now
be 150% offset on tax for R&D spend in the private sector in South Africa. And I
think these are the kinds of movements that are encouraging more and more people to
become partners in their own science and technology development.
The outline of the presentation I want to offer you today. Firstly, to tell you a little bit
about the AU/NEPAD work and Africa’s Science and Technology Consolidated Plan
of Action, which we’re incredibly proud about.
Secondly, to talk about some of the developments in SADC Science and Technology.
I’d like to spend a few moments talking about SADC as a preferred place to do
science not only for people in Africa, but also people in Japan and elsewhere in the
20/09/06 - Final 26
world. And I want to spend a moment or two talking about Japan and why we think
Japan is a valued partner in our part of the world in science and technology.
So to begin, the continental developments. Now we heard earlier that this institution
called AMCOST (The African Ministerial Council of Science and Technology) was
established in 2003 and we’re happy to have in our room today the first Chair of that
structure and that was then Minister Ngubane. This structure is established, it is
functioning, it is moving to a higher level of profile within the African context. One
of the phenomenal things it managed to do in Senegal in September of last year is the
adoption of Africa’s consolidated plan of action for science and technology. It’s an
incredible document. It’s incredible because of its content, because it represented a
high level of convergence right across the continent around what the 12 flagship
priorities would be.
And secondly, it is phenomenal in the fact that it was developed in a bottom-up

manner. It didn’t come from a group of experts and filtered down; it came from
regional workshops and filtered up. Now, it’s a complicated document and it’s long,
but it’s all contained in this little CD that’s available at the desk up front.
The third is the rapid progress with the lead programs. This platform has been in
existence now for two years and a bit. It already has a substantive history. It has a
highly functioning bio-sciences initiative, an African laser centre which is known in
eight African countries currently and is doing work with partners all over the world.
It has an institute for mathematical sciences which is a unique model of teaching
anywhere in the world and we can talk about that during the question time and the
water-sciences initiative has already started rolling out. So this is not a theoretical
platform, it is a very practical, it is an existing and vibrant platform already.
The last point and by no means least is that we’ve had very, very good international
reception to this program. Not only have several partners, including the G8s, been
involved in the development of the program, they’ve also been key partners, together
with many other countries, in funding parts of the program and being partners to many
of its projects. The two people that are on the slides, and this was in Senegal last year,
it was the handover from South Africa as Chair, that’s Minister Mangena on the right,
to the now Chair of AMCOST, Minister Gosama of the Republic of Senegal. So it’s
not owned locally inside Africa, it’s owned all over in Africa and I think a very
important point is to demonstrate, as we are demonstrating here now, that capacity in
Africa is all over Africa. It’s a matter of finding it. Quickly, reflective programs.
There are 12 I said and I’m going to talk about 13 and I’ll explain why. They have
been divided into a series of clusters simply to make the workings a little bit easier.
One of those clusters is bio-diversity, bio-technology, and indigenous knowledge.
Clearly indigenous knowledge is about more than bio-diversity and bio-technology.
But just operationally, it makes it easier to work. But this is one cluster of work that’s
working very well currently.
Second are energy, water, and desertification. And this year, as you would know, is
the United Nations year of desertification so we’re going to have a very high focus in
Africa around desertification this year. Third is the cluster on materials,
manufacturing, laser technologies, and post-harvest technologies. The fourth cluster
is ICT’s and space sciences. And the fifth cluster is mathematical sciences. I can tell
20/09/06 - Final 27
you explicitly that not only are they projects operating in several of these, but each
single one of them, of these flagships, has a business plan with a resource plan
attached to it already. The picture on the right, the previous one you recognized easily,
I think. It’s a bio-technology interface.
On the right here is a telescope called SALT (The Southern African Large Telescope)
which is currently operational in Southerland in Southern Africa. Now all of these
needs to be supported by a very particular policy agenda and that policy agenda are
illustrated in the Consolidated Plan of Action. The first of which is how do we
measure what we’re doing? Now, Japan is a world leader in these kinds of stats. On
the African continent, there’s not a lot of it happening. There are pockets of it
happening in various places of Africa. South Africa, for example, had the science and
technology R&D survey as a part of the official stats of South Africa. And we’re
trying to get science and technology indicators also into the peer review mechanism in
Africa. But this project, and it’s a very big one, is about organizing an African
observatory for science and technology. This African Science and Technology
Innovation Indicators Project is one that’s going to yield, the first basic set of
indicators, that’s going to be used uniformly across the continent by the members of
AMCOST, with the appropriate capacity support and institutional mechanisms, etc.
A second very, very key point is about how to make regional science and technology
cooperation work. It’s very good in theory, it’s an attractive concept, but unless you
have functional mechanisms to make this happen, it doesn’t happen automatically.
And some of the things associated with that are things like the Hub &-Spoke Model of
the Centers of Excellence because we’re not talking about Centers of Excellence on
its own anymore in this context, we’re talking about networks of Centers of
Excellence. That means getting a number of institutions that have the excellence that
you’re looking for in a particular discipline, networking them together, and then
forming a critical mass through the network. That’s one of the mechanisms.
The second mechanism is around exchange of researchers and students between and
among those institutions to build a capacity as well as to spread the knowledge. So
those are the kinds of things that are coming to the regional cooperation models.
The third is a public understanding of science and technology. People like me are
really envious when we travel because as you leave Johannesburg and you start
traveling, for example to Japan, everywhere you stop, like most people, I pick up the
local newspapers. And the further east you go, the more time you get in the
newspapers devoted to technology issues. I don’t know if you’ve observed that
yourself. And by the time you reach to Japan, you’re completely green with envy
because it’s telling you that people in that part of the world have a very intimate
understanding of how technology affects their daily lives and how it affects their
economies. And because of that, it gets into the policy conversations, it gets into the
resourcing and budget conversations in governments and elsewhere, and creates a
virtuous cycle. So the public understanding of science and technology inside Africa is
key for what we need to do.
We also talk into some specifics. One of those specifics is a common bar technology
strategy. On the African continent currently, there are about 20 of these in 20
different countries. They are not dissimilar but they are not coordinated. So there
20/09/06 - Final 28
currently is, under the auspices of NEPAD, a task force that’s coached by Ishmail
Senegali from Egypt and Collestus Jumer from Harvard University; on trying to bring
this process a lot closer together. Science and technology policy construct; this is not
a travail matter and is not a matter only for developing countries. In our bilateral
relationship with Japan, this is one of our key points of focus. Around exchanging
notes of how we work the different structures in our system.
I was very appreciative of Mr. Nishigahiro’s talk this morning. It’s afternoon in
South Africa. He organized a very simple narrative of how the Japanese systems
works and I found that very interesting because on the face of it it’s very complex and
we have to resolve these complexities and start drawing out the simple narratives of
the institutions, how they interact, what makes things work and what doesn’t. And in
the African context, this is the key.
The last, and by no means least, is to address what they call in South Africa the
Innovation Chasm. It is very, very good to have the repository of knowledge. It’s
very, very good to have top class researchers in your system. It’s very, very good to
have them in large numbers. But unless you can take that knowledge and put it into
the real economy, you’re not going to get the kind of products that you need. It’s not
unique to where we come from. We call it the Innovation Chasm. The Europeans
call it the European Paradox. It’s a worldwide problem and we have to deal with it
together. And we’re fairly convinced in our part of the world and in the NEPAD
context that things like techno parks and incubators are the kinds of mechanism that
allow us to take the knowledge and bring it out into the real economy. And we are
wanting to make a substantive investment in these areas. Now I think that in all of
these areas that I mentioned Japan would have a very intimate interest in developing
these out as a partner.
The Southern African context, and I think this is really important because one of the
things that is coming out in the Southern African conversation, and there are several
Southern African Ambassadors here who will know this better than I, is there is a
coalescing finally around how to make the institutional mechanisms for the sub-region
work in an intimate manner. I’m going to talk about the science and technology and
innovation component, but the broader context is that at the last SADC Council
Meeting, for the first time explicitly, there was the notion of science, technology, and
innovation as being one of the core drivers of economic development.
And we think this is a very, very pleasing bit of progress. So let’s talk about SADC
science and technology just a little bit. What do we have currently? We have some
loosely formed structures and I’ll talk just now how they’re going to get a lot tighter.
We have several regional or SADC based region science and technology projects.
And these are just three examples: we heard from Mr. Nakano about the Mozambique
Mozal which is a very interesting example of not only an inter-country project, but
also about combining research components and production components around a
technology project of very high value that has both quality of life implications for
poverty eradication as well as the opportunity for wealth creation for Mozambique,
yes, but also for South Africa, Botswana, and Zimbabwe, but also the classical
research areas.
20/09/06 - Final 29
Astronomy is a very good example. In Southern Africa, we now have, if you’ll
excuse the pun, a very good astronomy constellation of instruments. We have some of
the best optical instruments in the world, SALT being the latest one of them. We have
one of the most productive gamma ray telescopes in the world based in Namibia. And
the gamma ray telescope in Namibia, incidentally, it’s called the HEZ telescope. It
was recently a finalist in the Day Cup prize in the European Union for the kind of
work it was doing. We have, in the pipeline, a bit to build the largest radio telescope
in the world called the Square-Kilometer Array Telescope. It will have its core in our
part of the world, but it will have the remote moving all through Southern Africa and
even parts of Western Africa as well. A truly African project. And this is already on
the cards.
The crew base and mapping is another example of such a project. It’s geological
mapping and counting involves Botswana and Namibia and South Africa with
opportunities to expand into Zimbabwe as well. These are functional things that are
already on the table or out in the field. What is starting to emerge in the science and
technology arena in SADC is a series of very vibrant bilateral. Though several
bilaterals within South Africa are with its neighbors, there are several bilaterals with
the neighbors themselves. And what this is starting to do, this is starting to bring
things a lot closer together. And the vibrant bilaterals are becoming a very, very
important mechanism to make the multilateral forum work. The RISP and the Foreign
Affairs people will know this pretty well.
This is the Regional Indicative Sustainable Program in SADC. It has many problems.
But one of the areas that is starting to show a glimmer of sunshine is the cooperation
around science and technology. And I think this could be the foothold to make a great
many other things work as well. The public understanding of science in SADC is also
a high priority and in 2006 we are going to see the first SADC Science, Engineering
and Technology Week. And there’s a program that’s being currently developed. The
institutional structures are also starting to come closer together. One of the things that
is on the verge of formation is something called the SADC Ministers Forum for
Science and Technology. Now this had an interesting genesis during the meeting in
Dakar of AMCOST. The Southern African Ministers got together as caucus and
decided that what they needed in Southern Africa was to have this conversation
among ministers themselves. And they met Maputo in November last year together
with several of their officials and developed out what was called the Maputo
Declaration which is also on this CD. I just want to highlight one or two things from
that forum because some very, very important decisions were made and are currently
in implementation.
The first is motivating for a discreet SADC science and technology sector and having
a SADC protocol on science and technology. While the ministers were meeting in
Maputo they, at the same time, had a discussion with Executive Secretary of SADC,
Mr. Salomao was very much in favor of this idea and this is already starting to
progress. It will probably begin with a SADC desk on science and technology and
then expand itself into a full scale sector.
Secondly, the ministers themselves took the responsibility of developing the finance
and resourcing plan for what is called the Domestication of the NEPAD Plan for
Science and Technology. So the Southern African version of that plan of how to roll
20/09/06 - Final 30
out in Southern Africa. And Minister Vincent from Botswana is the person who is
coordinating that initiative.
Third is around the free movement of science, scientists, engineers and technologists
themselves as well as the scientific equipment because these are very important for
joint projects to happen. And this is being linked to the free movement protocol in
SADC and the science and technology movement may become one of the four runners
for that. This would have phenomenal implications for how we would be able to do
work inside the SADC region. The next is the Policy and Institutional Arrangement
Corporation. Now I talked about this in the NEPAD context and the continental
context. We want to make this a lot more vibrant in the Southern African context as
well. The public understanding of science and technology and I talked about the
SADC SET week proposal and there’s also proposal around a traveling exhibition in
SADC; around exploring and exposing various countries to what’s happening in
several of the others. Something Mr. Otabe would like to know about is that we’ve
realized in the Southern Africa region our individual efforts around an intellectual
property regime simply wasn’t gelling sufficiently or quickly. Several countries are
working on such regimes in Southern Africa.
The South African cabinet, in two months from now, will consider some new
legislation based primarily on the Bayh-Dole Act of the United States on publicly
funded research. But the intellectual property regime needs to go much, much further
than that and one of the resolutions in Maputo was the development of a SADC
protocol for intellectual property. The indigenous knowledge systems of our parts of
the world are key to the way we both live and to the way we produce knowledge.
Sufficient protection of our indigenous knowledge is required as well as the ability to
nurture and harvest what comes out of it and this becomes another very important part
of what we do.
The last point on this slide is an interesting one because one of the strange things that
we found in our discussions is that more South African researchers knew more
Japanese researchers than they did Botswana researchers or Mozambique researchers.
Simply because of the nature of the vibrant bilateral and the conversations that take
place. So one of the things we resolve to do to get the science communities of all
these countries working a lot closer together is to form a Southern African science and
technology portal. And what it will be is a web-based instrument roughly like this.
This is EUSASTAP, the European Union South Africa Science and Technology
Advancement Program. And this is the portal that links the South African research
community with the European research community; although it is available for
anyone else to use as well. It’s an open website. And it would be very useful for you
to visit this. I think it’s an interesting instrument. What we want to do is contextualize
this for Southern Africa as well. It will be a voluntary exercise by the different
countries and what they will do is to put their directories of researchers and scientists
and engineers and make that available for anyone else in the region. And we think
this would be a really useful way for people to start knowing their colleagues and
seeking out partners in the region.
Some of the other resolutions. The first one is a very key one around organizing for
high speed network and broadband access in the Southern African region and to link
three initiatives that are currently operating separately. One is Buntunet, which
20/09/06 - Final 31
operates primarily in Mozambique and Zimbabwe and starting to flow into Malawi.
The second is SANRN which is the South African National Research Network, a high
speed network for research institutions in South Africa. And the third is Jeant, which
is the link between South Africa and Europe. And we think linking those three will
give us the kind of broadband and volume that we need to connect our people and
explore the opportunities of connecting with other parts of the world.
Human capital development, as in any conversation around the world in any discipline,
is key. In science and technology, perhaps more urgent than most others. So the
human capital development program in the SADC context is one that’s going to get
resources, I think, along before many of the others. The role of science and
technology in poverty eradication. It’s something that many communities of people
talk about and I think, in those conversations, understand quite intimately what they
are talking about. But you know elsewhere in Tokyo today there’s a G20 meeting and
we have representation from our country and a few other SADC countries in that
meeting as well. They also need to know what this link is. So one of the key things
that we’re working on right now is developing out a paper that explicitly shows what
the links are between the investments in science and technology and poverty
eradication so that our planning ministers and ministries and our finance ministers and
ministries and our heads of state also understand it with the same intimacy that we do.
And then there’s the issue around the partnerships and there are many partnerships to
be considered. There’s the Public-Private Partnership and that gets a little bit of
conversation. The partnerships bilaterally and multilaterally not only between
governments but also between private sector players and civil society players. There
is also the importance of having the South/South collaboration.
On the next set of issues, Southern Africa; and I say that our goal is to make Southern
Africa a preferred destination for science and technology. What are the advantages
that our part of the world can offer? One is geography. There are no other places in
the world where you can study the southern skies, for example, as well as you can do
in Southern Africa. No matter how good your equipment is, if you’re in the north, all
you see is the northern sky. If you look at the southern constellation, geography is
key. And the motivation for SALT, for example, was based precisely on that.
The second is paleontology. And this is not something you can replicate anywhere
else. Our part of the world has a certain pale-ontological history that is key, absolutely
key, in examining the development of mankind. In June last year, we all had the
privilege of going to a series of Tobias lectures. Some of which were held in Japan
where we talked about this point; around the development of paleontology in our part
of the world. The picture that you see there comes from an exhibit in a place called
Maruping, which is in the cradle of human kind in South Africa and we all remember
very clearly that when President Mbeki opened the world summit on sustainable
development in 2002. The first thing he did was to invite all the delegates who were
there from 190 odd countries around the world that they were welcome home because
this was indeed the home of human kind.
The third factor is climate. You can’t study subtropical diseases in Japan or in London
or in New York. You have to do it in a subtropical area. And so the climatic
conditions associated with things like disease research and human health research,
20/09/06 - Final 32
agricultural research, etc, needs to find its place in the right kind of climate and
Southern Africa provides that kind of laboratory. Bio-diversity: South Africa
currently is the third most bio-diverse country in the world. The kind of bio-diversity
that you get in Southern Africa offers you a wide range of opportunities both in the
research field as well as the products field and we think we can offer that advantage
with infrastructure in Southern Africa.
And then lastly, and by no means least, there are pockets of excellence in our part of
the world. While we have a general scarcity of skill, while there generally is many,
many fewer scientists than we need. We do have some remarkable institutions and
some remarkable people who are currently working in several areas. So what do we
want to see happening?
Well, firstly, we’d like to see the broader world community thinking about locating
large multi-country projects and infrastructure and institutions in our part of the world.
Some examples: I spoke about the Square Kilometer ray telescope, and Japan,
incidentally, hasn’t signaled which way it will vote on that bidding and there are a few
countries involved in that and I think we have to talk to you quite intimately. But there
are other things as well, like the European Union Clinical Trials Partnership for
Developing Countries, the EDCTP. Currently is located in The Hague and in Cape
Town as the Africa office. We are currently bidding with several other countries to
locate the third component, the third major international laboratory of the
International Center for Genetic Engineering and Bio-technology in our part of the
world. What it will mean for us, it will convert Southern Africa into a major, major
international bio-technology hub for research. So we’re encouraging more and more
partners to start looking in Southern Africa around locating these projects there.
The second thing that we want for Southern African research groups and scientists is
to become preferred partners in many projects. Mr. Otabe talked a little bit about the
bilateral work that happens between our countries but, already, several of our
researchers in South Africa and several researchers in Japan are starting to form quite
powerful research consortia around competing for funds in the framework program of
the European Union, for example, and the NIH ones. So there is an availability in the
world for the kind of resources if we simply can get ourselves together. But you see,
the benefit doesn’t only go in one direction. The benefit goes always in two directions.
And this graph, which I also talked about last year at our forum, I think it’s quite
significant. In order for countries like Japan, who are on the x-axis, have a fairly high
investment in science and technology and not getting the kind of citation that they
want. The way that you elevate that point in the graph is by having the appropriate
international partnership to make that shift. And we think that Southern African
investment can organize for that shift for Japan.
Why do we want to impress on Japan to become a closer partner to us? And what are
the avenues in which one can do it? I think Japan can have a much increased profile
in the implementation of the consolidated plan of action, the AU/NEPAD plan for
science and technology in Africa. Now, the G8 has been very expressive on this issue.
But the people who have been talking on behalf of G8 on this issue with Africa has
been the United Kingdom through David King, Canada through Avacotti and Italy
through Minister Morrati. The Japanese voice in that conversation has not been loud.
We know it’s there because we see it in the declarations. We know it’s there because
20/09/06 - Final 33
it comes in various aid packages. But it would be useful if there was a higher profile
around the Japanese intervention, around the NEPAD plan than there currently is and
maybe the meetings that are going to happen next week between Japan and the SADC
hierarchy and the NEPAD hierarchy will do what it needs to do to get to that point.
The second point is the raising of the profile of science and technology in the TICAD
context. We’re, I think, collectively encouraged from the Ministry of Science and
Technology in South Africa as well as mixed in Japan that science and technology is
going to get a higher profile in the TICAD discussions and we’d like to explore that in
a lot more detail.
The third is an increase in involvement in the Southern African science and

technology agenda. As I explained in a couple of slides before, one is developing
quite robustly. And not too soon from now, there will be a SADC science and
technology protocol and not soon after that there will be a science and technology
plan of action to engage with.
The next point is about exploring novel mechanisms around this engagement. I mean
one of the things our Japanese colleagues tell us very often, and believe me we’ve
internalized this, is that South Africa is a middle income country and, therefore, is not
a candidate for ODA. That’s fine. There are things that we can explore in that
discussion. But a new model that’s coming under the table, and this we discussed with
JICA in Pretoria, is can we explore trilateral partnerships? Can we explore the kind of
partnership where, for example, we do a project in Mozambique? Or Zimbabwe? Or
Malawi? Where South Africa will pay its part of the bull in engaging in that project
and perhaps a country like Japan can assist the other country that has fewer resources
in order to be able to participate. And I think there are lots and lots of opportunities
like that that are coming up more and more often. And then you can have benefit for
all three partners in a very vibrant way. And I think these are the kinds of things we
can explore.
The last point is about the G8, the Commission for Africa, and the OECD, and the
TICAD mechanisms because all of these have lots of the right elements in the
declarations around where we can get to. What we seem to be able to need to do is to
start exploring how we can unpack that and actually do it; bring it to the point of
implementation. Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you very much for that and this for
me is a special slide and maybe I should stop using it because I use it so often, but this
really epitomizes the meeting of two parts of the world. This was at the INSITE
Exhibition in 2004 and we will be having the second of those in September this year,
and this was the Japanese stand and the robot you see there is a robot called Pino,
short for Pinocchio, and he’s meeting some very, very enthused, young South African
students from a local school in Johannesburg. And it’s a meeting that had very
interesting repercussions because the feedback that we’ve had from that school around
this interest has been simply enormous and many of them are engaging in many of our
broader based public understanding of science engineering and technology programs.
Thank you all very much.
20/09/06 - Final 34
Embassy
Thank you very much to Mr. Naidoo for this presentation. Indeed, keeping us abreast
of development in Africa and Southern Africa. We will start with the discussion
session. Ambassador of Zambia. Ambassador Simasiku will lead us on this item.
Ambassador thank you.
20/09/06 - Final 35
H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia – Discussion Session
Chair, Excellencies, I’ve enjoyed this morning listening to very distinguished

personalities giving us very valuable presentations. Our topic this afternoon is a
session on Southern African Science and Technology. What we can do with the
Japanese experience. I want you to imagine, you are aboard a plane, a 747, or these
big airbuses. And they ask you to go in the cockpit and take off and fly that plane.
Some people have managed to land the small planes under control Tower instruction
when some would collapse in the cockpit. But here on the ground to takeoff I bet 99
percent would not be able to move that plane. But we have to take off.
Now, I recall reading a book in the early 60s. It was a textbook in our schools. “Africa
Attacks Poverty” by someone who wrote it I think for his PhD. I remember reading
that in my first high school in 1960. But today if I were to write for my thesis I would
change that topic to say “poverty attacks Africa”. Now I want to finally invite you to
imagine why we want to put emphasis on science and technology in our continent, in
our region. Back home, people still trust the naked eye to determine how good what
they have is. For example, water in our river, some people just use their hands to turn
around the water and they look with the naked eye; and conclude it is safe to drink
and they will drink. But, we know today there is a lot of contamination that the naked
eye can’t see. So some people talk of the bionic eye. So I would like therefore, in
introducing this subject, to state that in taking off in Africa, we need taking a cue from
the presentations made today to make a deliberate move on science and technology
and innovation like we have had.
So, maybe we want to take a word from what Thomas Jefferson, an American
president, who said “The plans of tomorrow are more interesting than the history of
yesterday”. So, we had very, very good presentation here and finally Mr. Naidoo did
mention that we need to increase the profile in the implementations and consolidation
plan of Africa and raising also the profile of science and technology in the TICAD
process with Japan. Increase also the involvement in the Southern African science and
technology agenda and of course on the multilateral, bilateral model including the G8
from the Japanese perspective. We have always felt that we can learn from the
Japanese. Therefore, a song that says “learn on me when you are not strong”. So we
want to take advantage of involvement of the Japanese that have been kind enough to
give us the platform for TICAD and indeed the “One Village One Product” process.
So I’ll therefore invite your contributions, distinguished participants and on you have
documents before you to guide us. The partnership between SADC member countries
and Japan is the first one on the item, “What is the nature of international cooperation
in science and technology between SADC member countries and Japan?” What can
we do to stimulate international cooperation in science and technology between
SADC countries and Japan? And what are the short and long-term goals for
international cooperation in science and technology between Japan and Southern
African countries? And also we want to look at university partnerships also look at
university institute research partnerships, business to business partnerships, and
business to university partnerships. Consider as we also business to research institute
partnerships. And what are the conclusions.
20/09/06 - Final 36
So, I would like therefore to invite your participation, your vision. So please all you
need to do is to raise your hand, identify yourself and let’s hear what we share with
you. So the floor now is open. So, we will start with the partnership between the
SADC member countries and Japan. What is the nature of international cooperation in
science and technology between SADC member countries and Japan?
Ladies and gentlemen, the floor is open. Let’s start the ball rolling. I think the
enhancement of science and mathematics in our institutions form the pillar of
anything and everything that we want to achieve. We heard when Japan was giving a
presentation the issue of manpower that is adequately trained. So, science and
technology, what level do we want to achieve in our institutions. Because I think there
is strong synergy between that and what we want to achieve. Contributions. Yes,
Ambassador Botswana. Please introduce yourself.
20/09/06 - Final 37
H.E. Mr. Oscar Motswagae, Ambassador of Botswana
My name is Oscar Motswagae. I’m the Ambassador of Botswana. Thank you very
much Ambassador Simasiku for you introductory remarks and I believe that all the
questions that you have raised in your paper are, they are pertinent questions and think
they can, they will help focus our discussions and lead to very good conclusions out
of this workshop. I must say that I was really impressed by the presentation given by
Mr. Naidoo because it doesn’t just speak about South Africa, yes he’s the Deputy
Director-General in the Ministry in South Africa but the presentation that he made
kept the essence of what is really happening in our region, the plans that we have put
in place and even our intentions when we look forward as you said we have to look
into the future and see exactly what we can do.
Looking that at the first question, partnership between SADC member countries and
Japan. What is the nature of international cooperation in science and technology
between SADC member countries and Japan? I don’t want really to say that we
should focus on what has been put before us by Mr. Naidoo but at the same time as I
said earlier his presentations really captured what we are looking at as the Southern
African region. I think he was able to identify areas where the international
community, Japan in particular, can come in and support our efforts.
As we say it’s really a question of partnership between us and Japan so I would want
maybe to pose a question to Mr. Otabe, the Director General and say to him that a
number of areas have been outlined in the presentation by Mr. Naidoo and it would be
of interest to us as Ambassadors of SADC countries here. I think it is interesting,
particularly that we are talking about the nature of corporation in science and
technology between us and Japan. Maybe to get a sense of Mr. Otabe presented the
views of his government, what is exactly available for us. But now that you know a
presentation has been made on the plans we have in place I think it will be of interest
to hear from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan on the views that you may have
on paper and on the presentation by Mr. Naidoo.
He spoke about for example the flagship programs for research and development. He
spoke about a number of projects that have already been put in place in the areas of
education and the like. So if one could just maybe start by asking Mr. Otabe to make a
comment on the views that have been put on the table. Thank you very much Mr
Chairman.
20/09/06 - Final 38
H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia
Also before Ambassador Otabe comes in to answer you might wish, Ambassador, to
take into account also the point that you raised on technical buildup in the private
sector. And most of our countries now are relying on the private sector for
development. So, in answering the questions, you may like to see how for our
situation in our region, where can we focus in this cooperation considering the high
levels of your technology and our levels that need to be jump started? Ambassador.
H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe, Director-General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Thank you very much. In fact you have posed me such a difficult question so I will try
my best to start, having read this sheet of data regarding the various type of
partnership. I agree with the importance of having this multilayered structure of
cooperation between Japan and SADC as well as the all the African countries. It’s not
only the cooperation between government and government. But this multi-layered
structure of cooperation is really needed to enhance the cooperation between Japan
and the countries in Africa in the field of science and technology.
Before making my preliminary comment, to the paper prepared by Mr. Naidoo. I

would like to say a few words about partnership between SADC member countries
and Japan. In my view there can be no one fit for all approach, which could be
adopted. When we think about the future cooperation between Japan and the member
countries of SADC we have to admit that there are different conditions prevailing in
each of the SADC member countries as well as each of the African countries. So, for
Japan, or I should say the Japanese government, would like to find out the appropriate
way of cooperation which fits into the actual condition in each of the African
countries.
For example, maybe between Japanese and South Africa we can aim for the
cooperation in very high technology area but I don’t think that can be the case for the
cooperation between Japan and those countries in Africa which are just going into the
stage of consolidation of peace. Maybe for those countries that are still struggling, for
the consolidation of peace, the area where we can work together is maybe building the
necessary capacity for the institutions for future development. Anyway, what I wanted
to stress at this lecture is that we have to find a specific approach data to the
circumstances of each country.
Now regarding the document prepared by Mr. Naidoo, I like to express my

appreciation for giving us such a comprehensive description of the work being
undertaken in the South African government as well as in the framework SADC, AU
and NEPAD. I have learned a lot from his presentation as well as his documentation.
Having said that some of the comment is that I’m very happy to note that there is sort
of eagerness on the part of the African countries including, in particular, SADC
member countries to put high priority in the area of science technology. As he has
stressed, I think that, for the sustainable development to be achieved by the countries
in Africa, science and technology should form the basis of their development.
Secondly, I’m also very happy to know that the regional cooperation started to take
place because, for the obvious reason, regional cooperation is of at most importance
20/09/06 - Final 39
for the promotion of the development of the African continent. So I’m very happy to
know that the regional cooperation in forms of these specific projects has started to
take place in Africa. And I’m also very happy to note that there seems to be some
discussion about the importance of the protection of the intellectual property rights.
As well as there seems to be discussion started within the ministerial forum to discuss
about free exchange of people as well as free exchange of science and technology
related goods because these are the points that this government has been stressing not
only within the framework of our bilateral discussion but these are the points that we
have been stressing in other forum, including WTO. So I am very happy to see the
mentioning about these important aspects. Also I have noted that the reference is
made to the importance of the south- south cooperation.
In fact the south-south cooperation is one of the uniqueness of the TICAD process
because it is within this TICAD process that we have started to announce the
importance of the south-south cooperation. I’m very happy to announce now that
some countries in this part of the world not only Japan but such countries as Thailand
have started to show their interest for the promotion of the south-south cooperation.
So, I do hope that south-south cooperation will be further promoted. And maybe my
last comment on his paper “Japan as a Valued Partner”. He is mentioning about
leasing the profile of science technology in the TICAD process.
Yes it is true that so far within this TICAD process we haven’t had much discussion
on science and technology. But as we are going to prepare for the next TICAD
meeting in the year 2008 as I have mentioned I do hope at least flavor of science and
technology will be incorporated in the process. But, I don’t think that we can have the
TICAD meeting to discuss only about science technologies because we are going to
have the participation of our leaders and foreign ministers. And with my highest
respect to all leaders and foreign ministers not all of them are quite acquainted with
details of science and technology. So, although we will try to put some flavor, there
can be some limit.
Regarding the trilateral cooperation among Japan, South Africa and other countries,
indeed we have already started this type of cooperation involving the government of
South Africa. The case in point is which is not quite relevant to the topic of science
and technology but we have started to work together among South Africa, Japan and
the Democratic Republic of Congo for the promotion of the democratic process for
the preparation for the election and so forth. And I’m very happy to learn from Mr.
Naidoo during the lunch in time that he has started to discuss this issue with
representative of JICA to explore the possibility of following the trilateral cooperation.
Lastly, regarding G8 commission, Africa, OECD and TICAD mechanism, I have not
so much interest in Commission for Africa,. This is Tony Blair’s item but not Japan’s
own item. Regarding G8 and OECD. Well, at G8 we don’t have any secretariat. Quite
often, OECD provides us with basic support for the discussion to be held among G8.
So in a way, since there was already some coordination taking place between G8 and
OECD and quite recently for G8 member countries, we have decided to establish a
small unit in the OECD to prepare for the discussion of the African Partnership,
Forum where it is expected to follow up the various discussions made within the G8
system.
20/09/06 - Final 40
And for the relation between TICAD mechanizm and G8 and OECD. I should say that
it is the TICAD that started to draw the national attention of the African issues. Then
G8 followed the TICAD. This is how we think. However, given the importance of the
discussion being made within G8 and OECD and, of course, in the TICAD process as
well, we are trying to find as much synergy as possible.
And in the year 2008 we will host the next TICAD meeting will be the chair of G8, so
please be assured that there will be far better coordination among the work of G8 and
TICAD. I think I will stop here. Thank you.
20/09/06 - Final 41
Thank you director general Ambassador Otabe. Right, I was giving you an example of
the 747 obviously you need an experienced pilot to take off. The scientists are the
pilots to help us take off on this. Now before I invite Ambassador Ngubane of South
Africa, I just want to take into account that the topic we are discussing just now will
be the ground work for all the other questions. Once we thrash this out properly. Now
we have to take into account change, adaptation to change, science and technology.
What is the effect of this in our urban level setup? The rural areas? Because we have
different layers of need of adaptation, science and technology.
H.E. Dr. Ben Ngubane, Ambassador of South Africa
Thank you Ambassador. I think you have touched on what I actually raised my hand
to remark on. I agree with Ambassador Otabe. We can’t come to TICAD just discuss
science and technology. However I think it’s important to distinguish between levels
of participation in science and technology and the role it plays in development.
Developed countries obviously welcome competitiveness. Advanced manufacturing,
research, is critical. But for developing countries, there is a minimum level of
technology capability that has to be there if ODA is to produce sustainable results.
So when we talk in terms of TICAD, we are talking in terms of human security,

human resources development, fighting infections diseases. The country however
disadvantaged has to have some technological capability to deal with these things.
Just the vaccination of cattle to arrest tick-born diseases in tropical countries is
important but that requires a certain level of technological capability for it to function.
So I think it is important to stress both sides of the level: very highly advanced
competitiveness but also basic survivalist technology. The capability must also be
present.
20/09/06 - Final 42
Right, before I invite Ambassador Nakamura, I want you to consider what

Ambassador Ngubane has just mentioned. He mentioned amongst the points that he
was raising about cattle, you can vaccinate your cattle, etcetera, but you have other
important aspects to consider. I would like you to give us a comment. We heard about
Tsukuba international institution this morning being mentioned. We also want to hear
from the Japanese side. Three years ago we were told there was a vaccine that you
were working on. Tsukuba told us this is three in one vaccine. We need to fight cattle
diseases, because cattle are the backbone of the wealth of our people. How far are we
in trying to mitigate this process? Ambassador Nakamura. Ambassador Nakamura has
been Ambassador to Zambia and to other countries. When he was there so we got to
know each other so well.
Mr. Yoshihiro Nakamura, Executive Director, Japan International Labour

Foundation (Former Ambassador of Japan to Zambia)
Thank you very much. I would like to make a couple of specific points. First as
Ambassador Simasiku mentioned, I was stationed in Zambia before. So while I was
staying there, I observed various aspects of Japanese economic cooperation for
Zambia and Malawi. And the government of Japan and JICA established a very fine
institution, the Infectious Disease Center in Zambia’s main hospital and also we
established the Department of Veterinarian Science in the University of Zambia. Both
are very successful and as a matter of fact I was very much pleased to attend a
graduation ceremony of various students, scientists including those from neighboring
countries. . So in that sense the south-south cooperation has been going on in Zambia
actually.
Since I retired from the Foreign Service last year, I have worked for the Japan
International Labor Foundation. We have extended various field projects in
developing countries, including workers safety and health. That is very practical but is
very important. That aspect is very important in contributing to the betterment of
productivity of companies, so that it should be accepted by both the employers and
employees. We have been very successful in conducting this worker’s safety and
health projects, mainly in Asian countries. We are now planning to extend this project
to African countries as well. We already launched an AIDS Program in Zambia on a
trial basis. We are going to see another series of seminars and training courses in
Zambia very soon. Anyway, thank you very much.
Thank you very much Ambassador. You have heard quite some perspective from
Ambassador Nakamura so I would like to see if you have any contributions on the
nature of international cooperation in science and technology towards man-power
development, capacity building in general for the hardware involved in this type of
approach. Please the floor is still open so that we define the areas and we know we are
trying to accelerate development using science and technology. So what are the
emphases we want to put in which areas. Building wealth, creating wealth in our
countries because using that base at a grass root level higher up. Yes, please identify
yourself.
20/09/06 - Final 43
Mr. Naonobu Minato, Acting Director, IDRI, FASID
Thank you very much. My name is Minato from International Development of

Research Institute of FASID. FASID stands for Foundation for Advanced Study on
International Development. We mainly focus on the policy oriented research to
feedback to Japanese Official Development Assistance. And in the context of the
international development, I think we have two common goals.
One is poverty reduction that’s related with MDGs. The other is economic growth.
Our consensus is that,we can’t reduce poverty without economic growth. In general,
in case of Africa, I think poor people tend to live in the rural area and tend to be
farmers. I actually visited Africa more than 10 times. Then, I think the farmer produce
farming products. They sell them in the domestic markets and the market prices are
very low. They cannot get higher income. Still they continue to be the poor.
Now, I think one of the very important points is how they can export their products or
how they can add some value to their products. So in this context, I think agro
industry will be one of the most important and effective approach. But in case of agro-
industry, farmers need a lot of elements such as technologies, science, skills or
information.
Of course, farmers have some basic knowledge of these things. But, the technology or
science that is directly related with agro-industry or establishing some industry that is
very closely related to farming, are important. For example, recently, footware
industry in Ethiopia has started to export the shoes to Europe. They use cow skin that
is related with animal husbandry. The farmers can get the benefit from development
of footware industry. This is just my personal comment. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much Mr. Minato. I would like us to coordinate the three ideas that
have come in here. First we are talking about economic growth and the many
development goals referred to reduce poverty levels by 50 percent by the year 2015.
This is what we want to do. And we need to focus for example we know 70 percent of
the population in most countries depend on agriculture as has been just mentioned.
Now having very low incomes because of poor productivity, for example because of
no appropriate technology to enhance their production. So let us take into account the
nature that affects these people’s economic activities. Drought and floods. When we
have so much water. SADC for example, Zambia has 40 percent of SADC waters.
Why the shortage of food? So we want to address appropriately as we get along.
Ok, so next contribution please. On these lines let’s see what technology level we can
promote the small scale industry, the small-scale producer. Because the big
commercial farmer’s way of dealing with this is outside really the need of science and
technology for the levels like Ambassador Ngubane was mentioning, appropriate
levels that we have at the grass root level. Do I see Zimbabwe hand there? Yes please
Ambassador Comberback.
20/09/06 - Final 44
H.E. Mr. Stuart Comberback, Ambassador of Zimbabwe
I hadn’t actually put my hand up but thank you sir. Comberback from Zimbabwe. I
think to carry on the theme perhaps, we mentioned the millennium goals that we have
to try to attack poverty to use your term as well. And poverty is something which
affects all of our people. If we look at our problems, the majority of people live in the
rural area. Many of them are involved in agriculture, a lot of it is subsistence
agriculture. They need assistance to graduate them up from subsistence level to make
them produce perhaps not on a commercial level or as is known elsewhere in the
world. But certainly to do better than they are doing now. And they need to learn
skills. They need a certain amount of technology. It is supposed the term is
appropriate technology but they certainly need some assistance to graduate
themselves up the latter a little bit. But if you look at the other problems that afflict us,
the need to improve agricultural methods, there is HIV-AIDS.
A lot of the assistance that is given to Africa to combat HIV-AIDS is palliative. It

comes in the form of subsidized antiretroviral which are passed out. It comes in the
form of programs to inhibit and to stop the passage of the virus HIV from mothers to
infants. Of course all of this is extremely important. But, maybe more could be done.
We know a lot about HIV-AIDS in Africa. We are the principle sufferers from it.
Maybe more could be done in terms of research. If more emphasis was placed on that
in an African context, rather than providing huge amounts of money to European and
other drug manufacturers to subsidize the manufacture of antiretroviral and other
palliatives which come in Africa as part of development assistance or as humanitarian
relief. We must be grateful for that, but it’s not actually going to the core perhaps.
So agriculture, and agriculture is of course not just tilling the soil, its irrigation, it’s
what to do with your produce once you’ve made it. We heard earlier on about JA
downstairs standing for Japan Agriculture and that is really one of most incredible
organizations that I have seen operating here on the ground in Japan. We’ve been
around to quite a few of the prefectures and you find JA everywhere. They are
incredible. This is the sort of thing, a lot of it isn’t high tech but it’s an area where
maybe a transfer of some knowledge, a transfer of some technology could assist us.
So I think if we look at some of those areas, why Africa is poor, where Africa is poor
and we can think about appropriate technology that can be transferred and could
certainly make the situation a lot easier on the ground. You gave me the floor I didn’t
ask for, so I’m sorry I’ve been a bit rambling but there we are.
Thank you very much Ambassador. Right, Ambassador Comberback and Ambassador
Nakamura have mentioned the issue of HIV-AIDS. Right now every government is
trying to put in its programs of manpower development programs on HIV-AIDS
because it’s affecting our economies’ productivity. A lot of highly trained people are
dying and others lose man hours, because people are ailing, people have to go to
funerals. There is nobody who has nobody dying of AIDS in their families. We say in
Zambia, “You are either infected or affected.” So, I think the issue of HIV-AIDS, we
would like this also to be taken care of in this level of cooperation with Japan so that
the manpower that we are trying to develop can survive, can live its usefulness, can
look forward to retirement, a normal retirement age. People today are not retiring. We
20/09/06 - Final 45
are having people just die within two years of service—five years, ten years—all the
way right up into Cabinet. There is nobody who is spared from this disease HIV-
AIDS. So can we incorporate programs that will promote these issues seriously?
And also there’s the question of environmental degradation that needs to be addressed.
Deforestation is affecting a lot of resources in our countries, leading also to the drying
up of water sources. So we are having droughts. Sometimes in other countries we are
seeing landslides because trees were cut many years ago. So I think we should deal
with this question before we move to the next one, because I think this is central to it
all: manpower development, economic growth towards poverty reduction, farming
products, and the agro-industries; people throwing away skins and hides. You need
simple technologies to deal with this. Just a few days ago when we went to ANA hotel
we saw the Mekong experience: people using all sorts of materials to produce very,
very good crafts. In Zambia we have the infamous water hyacinth, weed which is a
nuisance, and with cheap technology can he turned into some good products that
could find their way in the developed world. So I think this is the consensus.
Now let’s move on to the next question. Yes Ambassador Obame, Ambassador of
Gabon.
H.E. Mr. Jean Christian Obame, Ambassador of Gabon
Thank you very much. In the context of a nature of cooperation between Japan and,
we’ll say, Africa, I think that we can think in the line, of what is really needed to
sustain growth.
In Africa, what we need is infrastructure, social and economic infrastructure. We are

talking about health. There can be no real development if there is no health, no
infrastructure in the area of health and education. There can be no growth if there is
no economic infrastructure, roads. IT cannot grow if we don’t have infrastructure in
the area of energy. I think mentioning infrastructure as key for cooperation between
Japan and Africa is most important. I think that Japan has an excess capacity in terms
of technology. This excess capacity can now be exported to Africa. The companies
dealing with infrastructure here in Japan, we want them to go to Africa and to
promote what we are talking about here: real development.
And I would like to also say that many areas of corporations have already been
identified. All these are not new. And priorities have also been identified. Now what
is at stake here is, do we have adequate funding, adequate mechanisms for funding
these priority areas. I think is the main question also here. We cannot talk only about
the cooperation if the source of financing is not there. So I think that we will probably
come to that later.
Thank you very much Ambassador. I think I would like to again pass this to gaimusho.
Ambassador Obame is mentioning problems of sustainable growth, economic and
20/09/06 - Final 46
social infrastructure, that there should be a transfer of excess capacity of development,
of technology, of science in Japan to Africa; and the areas of energy, cities, roads,
hospitals. So he’s correctly mentioning that many areas have already been identified
as well as the priorities in the structures. He’s also mentioning adequate funding. Now
the question I want to pose is that, there is doubling of ODA that has been announced,
what is the focus of this doubling of ODA so that on record we’ll be able to
incorporate it in the partnership of our countries and continents. Yes, please.
20/09/06 - Final 47
H.E. Mr. Atsushi Hatakenaka, Senior Vice-President, JICA
Mr. Chairman. Before you pass the subject to the next one, I would like to say
something. I am Hatakenaka, Vice President of JICA. I am very happy to be here; I
am sorry I could not attend the meeting this morning. I used to be the Japanese
Ambassador to South Africa until maybe five years ago. And I know something about
South Africa, but I don’t know much about total Africa, the different places. But I
have been dealing with all the business for many years. You are now discussing about
the science technologies, how technology can support all the development.
JICA has changed the working style after we got the new President, Madam Ogata. It
used to be that we approached development in Africa and other areas starting from
what we can offer. Taking consideration of our own experiences and history, we start
from what we can offer Africa. But we have changed our approach 180 degrees. We
try to respond to the demands, “What do you need?” We like to get the information,
so your opinion, your observations, what you need for development. Then we think of
what we can offer. This is the new approach. Because we have a long history of
transferring our technologies to developing countries we offered many technologies to
counterparts in developing countries. But according to our experiences these
counterparts, your people, have the knowledge and technology or something. But
these kinds of technologies in many cases couldn’t be developed in other areas, other
people. Some of the counterparts have the knowledge, but not beyond that.
So, we think the most important thing is in your country. Please identify what you
need, what kind of technologies and science you need for the development. Maybe it
is depending on the situations. Somebody said agro-industries, textiles, or something.
The most important thing I think, and JICA is thinking, is the commitment of the
people and of the government. In Japanese history we can show many examples; our
fathers, our grandfathers tried very hard for our own people. They tried to get the new
technologies from outside Japan. But the most important thing is that they tried to use
that technology for our own people. The commitment. We say that in the process, the
most important thing is the ownership of the development. In the history we are
telling the developing partners that self-help efforts are the most important thing. But
we changed the wording: ownership of the people, ownership of the community,
ownership of the government.
And we take a new approach; again the second one is that we are approaching the
communities. In the past we were only approaching the government, but sometimes
governments don’t know, I’m sorry to say, the conditions in rural areas; they just
know the bureaucrats, the governments. But they don’t know really what the
community needs. So we approach the communities. But not only the communities
we have to talk to the governments—both sides. The government should take care of
the systems, the mini-mini systems, or regulations or something to support the efforts
of the community. So now we call it “bottom-up.” Normally we approach the
development from the government only, but we start trying to approach both ways.
And the point is the commitment of the people, of the community, and the
commitment of the government is very important. We are putting the priorities in the
rural development, education, and primary healthcare.
20/09/06 - Final 48
In the past we just transferred the technology in these areas. But now we try to
approach the community or areas as a whole. For instance, the primary health cares,
we will build some say hospitals and clinics and provide the equipments. But not only
that, send the experts there. We try to educate the people. The people should take care
of themselves through this kind of technology or facilities. But normally in the past
our approach is divided only to offer the technologies, just offer the clinics, and just
offer the medical equipment. These three things aren’t really good enough. So we
changed the approach. Just come to the community and what you need. Come to the
government how the government can support this community. We provide many
schemes from our sides.
So the comprehensive approach, you may say so, not only one by one. Science
technology can support the government. But not only technology can support the
development. The most important thing is, I think, the commitment of the people and
the commitment of the government. So JICA is now ready to take any kind of
proposal from your people, from your government. But please find what you need,
what your people demand. Then we’ll discuss a partnership to formalize what kind of
program is most suitable. Please understand JICA’s approach has changed. And we
hope through the TICAD process or an effort process—I don’t care what kind of
process—we like to get this kind of request or ideas from your side. We are not ready
to offer our ideas, we would like to listen to your ideas. Thank you very much.
Thank you. What I’m going to do now is, I would like us to attempt to consolidate all
items under number one up to 1.6 so that we will have gained on time. So that we will
get to the conclusions later on because we have been debating this now for close to 40
minutes, 45 minutes in the next 5 minutes. So that we’ll be able to give time to the
next part. So we can wind up this particular paper at, say, 3 o’clock. Now I was saying
that to Gaimusho, maybe to answer those questions we’d posed. But, before doing
that, the points that have been raised by Ambassador Hatakenaka, the Vice President
of JICA, changing all the strategies from what we can offer to what the demand is. I
think most countries might say this without contradicting any of our countries in
Africa because there’s been a lot of cooperation on a number of areas. One of the
areas that I think is helping the receiving countries to deal with aid is accountability. I
think this is a component that has been emphasized.
And many countries now are going on track with accountability of donor aid that is
coming to them. Through this accountability there are many processes involved,
including the “bottom-up” approach. In the past you’ll have seen projects brought to
the people, imposed upon the people. And then you find that they have no capacity to
absorb that technology or the development brought to them because they were not
involved in the first place. So today, what is important for grassroots and a lot of
several organizations that are very, very active in development in the grassroot areas
is that they are able now to say “Right, we need this type of development first and
foremost.” Whether it’s a health center or whether it’s a school, or whether it’s some
federal road.
We’ll give you an example in some communities, when the toilets were built for them
without consulting them. Those toilets were not being used by the people for whom
20/09/06 - Final 49
they were intended to. Because one, the siting of those places were in conflict of the
cultural norms of that community. So people, for example, in our communities, they
don’t want a father-in-law or son-in-law to see them enter a washroom. Because the
door—the entrance—is facing everyone in the village. So it’s supposed to be situated
in some place where still privacy is considered. So these are the areas where, when
you involve the communities, consultation is very, very important. So I think the areas
of identifying what technical support can be given to the grassroots is now very, very
live.
For example, JBIC, through JICA, are going to the communities, living with the
communities and are able to monitor what could be relevant. Cheap technology. Just
slightly modified you find that it suits that particular community. So let us consider
therefore the ownership aspect on commitment of the people. Communities really
don’t even want the government to impose certain products on them. There are big
fights going on in most of our countries. The communities will take you to task. So I
think ownership is very, very important. Planning at micro level. So maybe you can
consider that question I posed on the doubling of ODA, what is the thrust towards
improving conditions.
20/09/06 - Final 50
H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Well thank you very much. After that very eloquent expose, or explanation, given by
Ambassador Hatakenaka, I can hardly find any additional comments to make, but
maybe I’ll mention two or three points.
First regarding the adequate funding mentioned by the Ambassador from Gabon, I
don’t belong to the school of Jeffrey Sacks. That means that during the past three or
four decades, the total volume of the offshore development aid extended to the
African countries, not only from Japan but from the international community as a
whole, and the total volume of actual European countries in Asia, the volume of ODA
extended to the African countries was much bigger. That’s one point. So it’s not only
a question of money. Rather, it’s the question of governance. Governance is quite
deeply linked to the ownership. And the governance should be applied at all levels.
Not only in developing countries, but also in developed countries as well.
As for the doubling of ODA to the African countries within three years, the
commitment made by Prime Minister Koizumi last year, well, as Ambassador
Hatakenaka stressed, we will listen to the views of the African countries based on
their ownership, but the area where we would like to put the priority would be the
community building as Ambassador Hatakenaka rightly pointed out.
As I have stated, at the outset of this afternoon session, there can be no one fit-for-all
approach. So the emphasis will not be identical to each of the African countries; it
will be tailored to the circumstances of each African country. And there was some
discussion about the possibility of Japans cooperation to enhance the productivity of
the agricultural sector, you may have heard that prior to the Hong Kong WTO
ministerial meeting last December, this government announced a new package of
assistance. Not only focusing on the agriculture sector, but that package also offers
three pillars.
The first pillar is that we will cooperate with countries in Africa and other countries of
the developing world to increase the productivity. Second point is after having the
increased productivity there has to be some market. That means we have to make
some works to link the producers to the market. This is the aspect of how we can sell
the product. Finally, we need somebody to purchase the final product. This is the third
stage of this chain, the purchase aspect. For this purpose we have announced a system
regarding duty free and quota free for those products coming from over sea. And there
was some mention of the excess capacity on the part of the Japanese business so there
should be some room for Japanese investment to be more active in the African
continent.
Well, I’m not sure Japanese business has excess capacity at the junction—I do hope
so, but I’m not sure—but in order for Japanese business to be more active in
penetrating into the African market, there should be some conditions to be met. And I
think Mr. Nakano has pointed out some of the important steps to be taken by the
African countries to attract the Japanese investment because, anyway, business is
business. So unless you are sure they can carry out their activities in a very
transparent and predictable manner, I don’t think any of the Japanese business will go
out of this country, not only for Africa but for any other country in the world.
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I think I’ll stop here. Thank you.
Thank you very much Ambassador. Now, like I mentioned, we will consolidate items
1.1 to 1.6, but as we do so, I would like to pose a question to the African diplomatic
core to consider what they perceive as short term and long term goals for international
cooperation in science and technology between Japan the African countries. So can
we hear from you what you see as short term and long term in a few minutes? And
then we move on to the other business.
20/09/06 - Final 52
Well I think the short term must be to enable our countries to make use of this
opportunity offered by Japan for instance the access of FCD products, agricultural
goods and so on, to the Japanese market. And hopefully, to the markets of other
developed countries. But to do that we have to provide sustainable trade. By
sustainable trade I mean crops, fruit, and all those things that are consumable in a way
that is sustainable in the markets where we want to sell. The kind of pest management
applied to our vegetables, to our food, to our fruit, the type of dyes used in making our
textiles, the types of feed our cattle get. So I’m saying short term: let us try and get
Japan to help our countries, the less developed countries to make use of this
opportunity to produce in a sustainable way. Because even if this is offered, if it found
that sanitary conditions are not met, those products will not get into the Japanese
market.
In the long term, quite clearly, technological capability of any country, of any nation,
depends on education. So assistance with education programs, supporting the teaching
of mathematics and science in our school, which has been the case with the
Mpumalanga, the Mpumalanga Secondary Science Initiative, for which the South
African Provincial Minister was here, I think is the model example of how JICA and
the government of Japan can work with developing countries. Thank you very much.
20/09/06 - Final 53
Thank you very much. Any contribution? Gabon, Ambassador? Thank you very much
Ambassador
H.E. Mr. Jean Christian Obame, Ambassador of Gabon
To answer briefly your question, I think that in the short term, what we need to do, is
work on the gap, the information gap, that really exists between Japan and Africa in
terms of knowing each other better, in term of knowing the needs in Africa, the
potentialities in Africa, and also knowing better the market here in Japan. There is a
gap, a gap that I think on the short term we really need to cover. We know that some
initiative has been taken to launch a website on “African countries, I have visited” one
of these websites, but I didn’t see it very appealing or very informative. I think that is
something we have to do on the short term: information.
But on the other area, I think that it will be good, as Ambassador said, to work on a
partnership on education. I think this is key. To see the kind of technologies that we
can master and transfer to Africa; building on the experience of Japan. The first thing
is that I think through JBIC there is already a framework of preparation that we have
seen this morning. This framework needs to be well known by our institution in
Africa, by our businessman, so that we can really promote the joint venture between
Japanese companies and African companies with adequate funding, not only for ODA,
and also funding for promoting loan in business communities and so forth.
And also, what is very important and what was missing I think a little bit in the
presentation this morning by JBIC is how to guarantee all sorts of loans. At a certain
point, I think that a kind of institution to guarantee investment in Africa was mention
in the framework of JBIC this time I didn’t hear about it. I think that something was
supposed to be done with African Development Bank. I think it’s good that we work
on something like that. Thank you very much.
20/09/06 - Final 54
Thank you. Another contribution on those important questions? Botswana? And also
Mr. Naidoo?
Mr. Chairman, I think we have had very little discussion on the policy question.
Support for policy development. This morning Mr. Nishigahiro spoke at length, and I
think a very interesting presentation on what Japan has and what Japan is doing to
focus on the question of advancement in the science and technology area. In the
policy area, the structure that have been set up in the cabinet, the structure that have
been set up to keep up with the private sector and the like. I must confess that, you
know, in my country we woke up very late to the importance of science and
technology for development. It was only I think three or for years ago that we set up a
Ministry responsible for science and technology, and we are still at the policy
development level.
Mr. Naidoo, you spoke about what is happening within the structures of SADEC. And
Petronas is participating the ongoing discussions and deliberations to develop policy
and plans of action at the regional level. But I must confess, even at the national level,
I think as individual countries we still need a lot of support in the policy framework,
trying to develop clearly defined policies that can take us from point A to point B.
And I think it’s one other area which we may want to look further into and see how
we can develop cooperation and partnership with Japan in the area of policy
development, particularly with the structures that Mr. Nishigahiro spoke about. I don’t
know whether he would not want to comment and maybe speak about what he thinks.
I think the presentation by Mr. Hatakenaka was very good and in fact I think it’s
important that our Japanese friends also speak about what we should do as African
countries ourselves.
We tend to be pointing a finger at them and saying that maybe they could do more to
help us. But I think that it is important that you also point out to us what we are doing
and what we can do to improve on what we have now. Thank you very much.
Right. You heard the Ambassadors there also talking and commenting on what
Nishigahiro-san mentioned this morning. Now the issue of the Japanese market. I
think the very, very important lessons that we are learning by our presence in Japan,
for example, the beef issue with the United States. If you are not in Japan, you will
not understand how this works, what’s the cause, what dimensions. Because I know,
for example, we had some accident unfortunately in the Mori building and a little
child was crushed; all the revolving doors in Japan were halted. This is the way things
are done. The Americans were trying to put pressure, but the Japanese are saying,
until the problem is solved. So while our people are adapting to the Japanese market, I
think we have also to create this awareness in our own people, to stick to very high
standards, especially when it comes to food products. Because it’s not taken to chance.
Here we have seen products, even from Japanese farms, withdrawn from the market,
from the shelves, from the freezers.
20/09/06 - Final 55
So if it was done to my country, maybe we would assume it’s discrimination, but this
is the reality on the ground. So the issue of getting quality items that Ambassador
Ngubane alluded to come again to the Japanese offer to help us produce, market, and
sell these products. So I think this partnership must involve also our backyards to be
ready to accept this line of development. Because Japan can offer the technology, as it
has been correctly mentioned, if we have policies in our institutions. Through this
forum we’ll try again. Fortunately we are having people in here from our institutions,
we are having the AU people coming in, we’re happy to send the correct signals about
role of science and technology.
I mentioned about the plane which is to take off. It can only take off with highly
trained personnel who are taught to fly this whole big plane. So we would like
therefore to say the policy structures in government and the levels of science and
technology have to be enhanced. Because like we noticed, in most countries science
and technology minister is the most junior minister in the national administration. So
really, how are we going to improve our scientific organizations, research, et cetera,
by coming up with ideas, but they’re stifled because of lack of funding, because it’s
not a priority. I think it’s time to prioritize these also, so that we can also match with
the level of cooperation we are foreseeing, that we are asking for.
Now, the issue of joint ventures that has been raised. Ambassador of Zimbabwe?
20/09/06 - Final 56
H.E. Mr. Stuart Comberback, Ambassador of Zimbabwe
Just one or two more items to add into the pot. We are sitting around the fireside and
adding lots of things into the pot. The access has been granted to the Japanese for
goods and products coming from LDCs (Less Developing Countries), we think this is
an extremely positive development and really needs to be applauded. And I think it
will make, as we have heard about the different aspects of the program, a huge
difference over a period of time. I think what we—we were discussing this amongst
ourselves the other day as African Ambassadors—and the feeling there, perhaps just
to share it with colleagues here, was that the criteria by which a country, a developing
country, is really, if I can use the word, controversial. It’s probably not the right term,
but there are question marks about it.
The difference in many cases between the least developed country and a developing
country in terms of its economy, in terms of its ability to produce, in terms of its
ability to borrow, and in terms of its economic development, the difference is
sometimes not so great. Our request or our proposal or our hope would be, rather like
the Americans did under their Goa Act, which was open to all developing countries in
Africa, least developed and developing. Although there were some nuances, there
were some differences in the way the goods and products coming from an LDC into
the American market and goods and products coming from a developing country,
there were some differences as to how those were treated. But not huge differences.
And Goa has applied in Africa to textile sector, the footwear sector, the leather sector,
has been extremely, extremely beneficial. And perhaps its something our friends in
Japan could look at as well. Alright we start with LDCs but the size of the Japanese
economy, I think it could withstand the onslaught from developing countries as well,
not only LDCs in Africa, but developing countries.
A second thing, completely unrelated to that, education, and the need for us to
concentrate on education in Africa. I was recently down at Oita, at APU (Asia Pacific
University) last year, fantastic campus with tremendous ideas on assisting developing
countries in education. New campuses, new disciplines are going to be launched this
year and over the next couple of years, many of them of great importance to
developing countries. Tourism. Multimedia enterprises. These kinds of things are
extremely important to us. And again, as the Japanese authorities look at how to
deploy these increased funds coming on ODA, and as we look at helping Africa on
education, and as we look at teaching Africans, opening Japanese experience to them
in all of these very, very important fields, perhaps this is one area where there could
be more African students coming now to APU. Perhaps that could be a deliberate
policy to try out, and adds another A to the title, “AAPU,” so it would become “Africa
Asia Pacific University.”
A final thing: we’re looking at TICAD. And we’re looking forward to TICAD 4
coming in 2008. I remember very clearly, as do all my colleagues from TICAD 3,
when as part of the process of promoting closer ties, closer understanding, obviously
closer understanding between Japan and Africa, quite a bid was made from the
African side that there should be some kind of structure put in place, some kind of
mechanism to allow for closer liaison between Africa and Japan, and of course the
other TICAD partners as well. In between the various TICAD meetings. Prime
Minister Koizumi himself spoke about the need to institutionalize TICAD. And this is
20/09/06 - Final 57
something, I think if we’re talking about TICAD becoming more and more of a
buttress and a support mechanism for NEPAD, NEPAD is solid, it’s on the ground,
it’s moving, we need that kind of support. I think the timing could be right to give this
question of institutionalizing TICAD a little bit more consideration, see if we can’t
carry it a little bit further forward, in time, maybe for something positive for TICAD.
Thank you very much.
As we now wind up this particular program, I think it’s important now that what we
have been discussing fits into the framework of what we want to see. The vision, short
term and long term. Therefore, what has been debated here can also apply on levels of
university to university partnership, university to research institutions, business to
business, business partnerships, et cetera, all these I think they follow the same route.
It’s just other sectors that are involved in various areas of human endeavors, and
sometimes we use that description. So I would like to thank you distinguished
participants, really for your very wide knowledge and depth of the ideas that have
been debated here. And I must admit this is one of the most difficult moderations that
I’ve had to do. Science and technology—imagine, I’m not a scientist of any kind. So
to try and comment on what scientists say, think, plan, and do is not the easiest of
things to do. But we are grateful for your contributions this morning and this
afternoon.
I think we have a dual role to play in this particular side of science and technology: to
improve the quality of life of our people, to increase economic cooperation, to also
increase economic growth, to reduce poverty in our countries. I thank you.
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H.E. Mr. Daniel Antonio, Ambassador of Mozambique – Question & Answer
First of all I want congratulate the speakers of this morning and afternoon sessions for
their rich and important presentations. Secondly, I would like to thank the Embassy of
South Africa for this initiative and also for the leading role in promoting science and
technology in Africa as a whole. My role was to ask if there are some questions to be
put to those presenters of this morning and this afternoon. I believe there are many
questions to be answered, especially after the presentations from JBIC, JICA and the
Gaimusho. We were left with some questions or maybe clarifications to be asked for.
Anybody with comments, questions, or observations to make, please, the floor is open.
Thank you Chairperson, Excellencies, colleagues, and the participants, and our
visitors here today. I would like Mr. Naidoo to talk about the technology for
development programs in South Africa which were formulated and run by the
Department of Science and technology, because I think it will give added emphasis to
us pursuing science and technology for development. While we still need to have our
universities and research institutions doing cutting edge research in science for
competitiveness, the people need very urgently, assistance with simple projects that
they survive on. Thank you very much.

Technology
Thank you Ambassador, and thank you Ambassador for that question. It’s particularly
relevant because there’s an automatic association when you talk science and
technology to high tech, to cutting edge research, to basic research, to answering
fundamental questions, and competitiveness. Ambassador Ngubane is absolutely right;
unless you, at the same time, are addressing the needs very directly of the poor you
system is going to lose. What we’ve done in South Africa, and there are many
countries in the world that do this kind of work, is to organize for three types of
intervention. One is to develop a level of knowledge that assists people with a
subsistence level of activity. So for example, bee keeping, mushroom farming, or the
development of crafts, to value-add. Ambassador talked about his water hyacinth
weed problem, for example, by taking water hyacinth to the next level of productivity
so that you can actually have some kind of material product that can sustain
livelihoods out of that, is one leg.
The second leg, and this falls under the banner of a program we call Tshumisano in
South Africa, is where you start developing technology based on enterprise level into
a commercial productivity level. And Tshumisano is about very specifically
developing very small and medium and micro enterprises with a technology base. So
this is about assisting people to come on board into the commercial sphere into the
mainstream economy with a technology idea that they can develop specific products
on. And usually that’s associated with knowledge that already exists. So by taking the
knowledge that’s already out there and converting that into a prototype, and
sometimes a prototype already exists, and you can convert that into production. And
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needless to say, some of this involves science and technology, but most of it is around
developing business and business support systems.
The third, and we put this under a program we call GODISA, is where you actually
have incubation, where you take an idea and you incubate that idea until you get the
technology, and then you take that technology into a prototype and then out into the
market. And all of these are directed to what we call, in South Africa, the second
economy, the economy that deals with poverty eradication and the improvement of
quality of life as its basic goal.
But needless to say, if you do this correctly, you go into the first economy. You can
actually start creating competitive industries in their own right. So these are some of
the fundamental ways in which science and technology intervention can help people
get to the point of sustainable livelihoods and some of those people even to the point
of being fully-fledged entrepreneurs and business people. I can also add that as a
percentage of the budget, it doesn’t take a lot. But what it does, and this is really,
really critical, is to have the right kind of partnership. And there are two kinds of
partnerships here. One, in most cases your Science and Technology Department is not
going to be your lead department. That you’re probably going to be looking at an
agriculture kind of project, or the kind of project that your Trade and Industry
Ministry would be the lead ministry. So getting that partnership right, right at the
beginning, is critical, otherwise you have turf issues, you don’t have the right kind of
mobility where you get passed an idea to commercialization to support.
The second is that essentially you’re creating an enhanced private sector. So if it’s
possible to bring a private sector partner somewhere in that chain, that’s what ensures
sustainability of those kinds of projects. And for a science and technology
intervention there isn’t too much you need to do: you need to do the pilot, you need to
replicate it, and that in itself becomes a case study and a model for a whole range of
other people to follow. Thank you.
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H.E. Mr. Daniel Antonio, Ambassador of Mozambique
Thank you, once again, Mr. Naidoo for these comments. Any more comments? Your
Excellency, you have the floor.
Can I just ask Mr. Naidoo, maybe for a comment? We as Embassies of Southern
African countries have set up what we call the South African Science and technology
Community, and our hope is to develop programs that will strengthen partnership
between our region and Japan in the area of science and technology. But I must say,
quite often it is difficult to work from the distance of Japan with our people on the
ground in Southern Africa. Mr. Naidoo this morning spoke about the programs that
are being developed for SADC, and I believe what it means is that we as the now
SASTeC should be working with people like Mr. Naidoo, working with the SADC,
working with our countries to develop a partnership with Japan in the implementation
of the programs and the projects that we come up with. But, as I said, it is quite often
difficult to work and get our people on the ground to support our efforts at this side.
So you know I think maybe the case of South Africa is better because they already
have an office in Japan that is responsible for science and technology. But in a lot of
our Embassies, it is really the diplomatic personnel, and we have very little direct
links with our Ministries responsible. So I just wonder, in your view, how do you
think we can make SASTeC a success? How do we link up people with our people on
the ground so that what we are doing here doesn’t just become a talk show? We speak
about science and technology today, and then tomorrow nothing comes of it.
Our hope is that we can develop concrete programs that will develop and strengthen
partnership with Japan in the area of science and technology but we have problems of
linkages and working out concrete programs with our people, as I said. So I just want
you to comment on how you think we can make this work, how we can get good
support from our capitols from the region.
Mr. Naidoo, thanks for that question. I’m not going to respond to it because you’ve
designed your program very well, and you’ve also chosen the people in your program
very well, because the Ambassador from Zimbabwe, in his closing remarks, is going
to offer a very specific proposal to deal with what you’re talking about.
Well, I think it’s such an important question that was raised by the Chairperson of
SADC, Ambassadors that we must attempt to answer it, however deficient. It’s going
to be very important for South Africa’s Minister of Foreign Affairs to input this in the
Council of Ministers of SADC as an initiative that directly works with TICAD in
Japan by the SADC Ambassadors. Once the Ministers’ Council of SADC adopts this
as one of their mechanisms to work more closely with SADC, it’s going to be more
possible for us as SASTeC to work with MEXT, to work with Foreign Affairs, to
work with METI, on these very issues. And of course as the JICA Senior Vice-
President indicated, JICA, is open to hearing what hear as countries of SADC want to
see happen. But as you say, we need to link back with our Ministries. However, the
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linking back is not going to be effective in individual Ministries. I think within
institutions like the SADC Secretariat, mediating among the Ministries in our
countries and adopting programs that are part of the council of ministers and of SADC,
we will have sufficient authority, this side, to be able to make effective
representations to JICA, to JBIC, and to all the other structures in this country. Thank
you.
Mr. Koichi Hagiwara, Industrial Development Officer, UNIDO
Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. In the year 2008, there will be the TICAD, and
it is going to be, as everybody knows, the fourth conference. This means there is some
kind of desperate wish from both African parties as well as from Japanese end that we
need some kind of concrete, tangible output. And, personally speaking, for the past
three TICAD, science and technology has probably not been very much highlighted
yet. I personally feel that we have a very nice platform towards the goal to create very
tangible output. And then, I would say this is about time for us to create some kind of
task force team to table a concrete proposal. Or it could be based on one-village-one-
product, or technology transfer program, or CDM, or whatever it is we definitely need
some kind of very concrete proposal as soon as possible.
H.E. Mr. Daniel Antonio, Ambassador of Mozambique
Well, that concludes our chapter of questions and answers. Thank you very much.
And I’ll give the floor to Mr. Lingela.
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Embassy
Thank you very much, His Excellency. This was really stimulating, and your
facilitation was tremendous, we appreciate it. Now we need just some last words to
conclude our workshop with the Ambassador of Zimbabwe and the remarks to seal
the whole SASTeC workshop. Ambassador, thank you.
H.E. Mr. Stuart Comberback, Ambassador of Zimbabwe – Closing Remarks
Thank you. Let me just start by apologizing in advance to the ladies in the
interpretation booth back there because what I’m about to say bears absolutely no
resemblance to the text I gave you earlier on, but maybe you could expect that since
it’s very difficult to write closing comments before the workshop starts. So I do
apologize in advance.
Excellencies, distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, we come thus to the

end of a very fascinating and educative day. It’s always difficult after a workshop like
this to draw any neat conclusions—so many ideas and thoughts and suggestions have
come forward. And so much information has been imparted that all one can do, really,
is to try and distill the essence, the main themes out of all that has come forward and
to put it into some kind of order.
Let me start, if I may, by looking at it from the African perspective. We’ve listened to
a number of very distinguished speakers today who’ve highlighted the crucial
importance of science and technology, research and development, within the broad
perspective of growth within our countries. Considerable emphasis has been placed
today on the challenges facing Africa in this regard, and on the critical need for Africa
to far mar itself, using its own human and material resources, and indeed it’s own
indigenous knowledge, to address these challenges. Mr. Naidoo’s presentation gave us
a most encouraging perspective of Africa’s intensifying efforts to mobilize and
organize itself in a more concerted, more focused, and more sustainable manner, to do
exactly that: to address and overcome these challenges. Much was said about the need
for Africa to have ownership, and therefore full commitment to, it’s growth and
development programs.
Well, we’ve heard about AMCOST and NEPAD’s consolidated plan of action for
science and technology and of the multiple opportunities this plan now provides for
Africa to work more closely together and with its international partners; to harmonize
it’s efforts in the field of science and technology; to add value to existing S&T efforts;
to avoid duplication of those efforts; to develop regional hubs, or centers of
excellence; and to network those hubs; and to ensure that those centers are adequately
funded and supported.
The presentations made by our most distinguished trio of speakers from Japan, the
three Directors Generals, were extremely enlightening and very, very useful. Japan, as
one of the world’s most technologically advanced countries, with vast experience and
knowledge in all aspects, of S&T, research, and development, has the capacity, and
has been confirmed once again here today, it has the willingness to assist African in
the ongoing battle against underdevelopment and poverty. I think we’ve all been
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encouraged and impressed by the details of the EPSA initiative, with its enhanced
focus on social and economic infrastructure, and, very important for many African
countries, with the apparent new flexibility with regard to those countries which fall
under the HIPIC umbrella.
Equally as interesting are the creative new forms of ODA funding, such as the poverty
reduction support credit system we heard about in relation to Tanzania, very, very
interesting. We’ve heard today also of different ways in which Japan and Africa might
forge a closer strategic partnership in science and technology with the specific
objectives of enhancing economic development across our continent and of adding yet
a further layer to already existing structures of economic cooperation. I think it’s clear
that cooperation in the S&T field is absolutely essential if, as part of a global
community, Africa is to achieve its full potential contribution to the search for global
solutions, to issues of global concern. Japan has had a unique experience in helping
the development and the advancement of many nations in Asia. We can learn from
those experiences and, indeed, from Japan’s own successes and its failures, as it’s
traveled it’s own path—amazing path, actually—towards advanced industrialization
and the optimum deployment of S&T, of it’s own S&T expertise.
Similarly, there’s much to learn from Japan’s experiences with regard to the
development of a facilitative and effective policy framework for S&T. Director
General Nishigahiro’s explanation of how the various S&T institutions in Japan
coexist and cooperate not only within Japan, but externally on the international stage,
I think holds many lessons for us in Africa. Again, we can learn. Both the Director
Generals spoke about TICAD and S&T cooperation between Japan and Africa, and
Director General Nishigahiro spoke of the G8 in a similar context. Both pointed out
that Japan will include science and technology to the agenda of the G8 summit and to
TICAD 4 in 2008. As SADC and African Ambassadors here on the ground in Japan, I
think we have to take the lead from what Mr. Naidoo said in his presentation his wish
for Japan within both the G8 framework on S&T and also within TICAD to speak a
little louder for S&T to take a higher profile within the broad TICAD framework; and
for Japan on its own and in concert with its G8 partners to look into new ways of
boosting S&T cooperating with Africa.
The trilateral project approached proposed by Mr. Naidoo is one that need to be
examined more closely. I think it’s extremely interesting and holds a lot of potential
for future cooperation between Japan and African countries within the TICAD process
and more broadly, within the G8 process as well, G8 focus on Africa. And I think all
of this especially at a time and within a context where Japanese ODA towards Africa
is said to increase. I think as SADC and as African Ambassadors, our work, certainly
in this field, is clear-cut. And I would ask Ambassador Otabe through his
representative here and his team to plan to meet with us to take discussions on this
issue a little further and to see where we might be able to take it within the TICAD
framework.
The discussion sessions chaired by the Ambassador of Zambia and Ambassador of

Mozambique focused on other important aspects of the overall equation: identifying
priorities for S&T cooperation between African and Japan, and how having taking
these first steps we sustain a solid, effective program of cooperation between Africa
and Japan, I think the point raised by the Ambassador of Botswana. On the question
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of priorities, Africa faces many challenges, and has very limited resources with which
to address them. The tendency has been for African countries to try to spread their
efforts over too wide a range or too wide a series of challenges and always with too
few resources. The results, inevitably, have been disappointing and often ineffectual.
The NEPAD consolidated plan on S&T is changing that approach and provides a clear,
continentally agreed-upon framework for action, facilitating a collective approach to
common challenges and, most importantly, identifying agreed-upon areas of priority
interest and concern on the basis of the most pressing challenges facing Africa—food
security, HIV-AIDS, the lack of modern infrastructure, the debilitating loss of skills—
all of which contribute to the crushing burden of poverty which weighs upon all of our
countries.
Those S&T priority area is surely, in the fields of agriculture, health and in medicine,
renewable energy, engineering, and the various social sciences, including of course
education itself. On the question of how do we sustain S&T cooperation between
Japan and Southern Africa and more broadly with Africa, as already mentioned we
have NEPAD and we have the consolidated plan for action. We also have TICAD,
and it’s agreed status as a buttress or support mechanism for NEPAD. Already, that
provides a framework within which we can operate. I mentioned the need for us as
Ambassadors to engage with Gaimusho, with JICA, and with others to try within
Japan’s broad ODA thrust to give more emphasis and profile and, of course, more
funds to S&T cooperation with Africa.
Clearly within this equation it is the schools, the Universities, and science and
technology institutions within Africa and within Japan which hold the key to a
successful and sustainable program of interaction and cooperation. Solid links
between and amongst them must be forged, closer cooperation and more frequent
exchanges developed, experiences and knowledge must be shared. The private sector,
as well, has a major role to play in this scenario. We’ve taken note of Ambassador
Otabe’s concerns with regards to protection of intellectual property rights as a
requirement, not only to facilitate the flow of FDI into our countries, but also as a
requirement for a full and open exchange of S&T research, data, and material. Our
partners need to have that confidence, and I think it was most reassuring to hear from
Mr. Naidoo that we are doing something about this at the level of SADC.
So as we end our workshop, several key facts are evident. One, our world is changing
at a rapid pace, driven largely by science and technology advances. There can be little,
if any, development without S&T. Indeed, the most advanced countries are those
which have invested the most in S&T. Africa is lagging way behind in the S&T field;
inadequate systems, inadequate resources, and wrong priorities have meant that S&T
innovations, even those which have been developed within Africa itself, have not
reached, in most cases, those who need them most. NEPAD’s consolidated plan of
action for S&T is now in place and provides a framework for closer cooperation and
coordination in science and technology between and amongst African nations
themselves and between Africa and its development cooperation partners. Japan is a
world leader in S&T development and research. Japan has already demonstrated its
commitment to assisting Africa through the TICAD process. TICAD, we all agree,
serves now as a pillar of support for NEPAD. There is thus tremendous scope for the
20/09/06 - Final 65
development of a cooperation program between Japan and Africa to boost S&T
capacity across a wide range of priority areas within African countries.
I’ve mentioned those areas already— agriculture, health and medicine, engineering,
social service sector—these should certainly feature amongst those priority areas.
There are others, of course, but those, I think certainly form part of the discussion we
had, those seem to emerge as being on the collective thought process here. Schools
and universities and S&T institutions, and of course the private sector, both here in
Japan and in African countries are the instruments by which such a program can be
developed and sustained. As SADC and Japan, we’ve taken these first steps toward
the development of such a program. It’s important that as SADC and Japan we follow
up on today’s meeting, and that we pursue together the ideas and proposals which
have emerged and taking them further, and ideally, towards a concrete outcome. On
behalf of my SADC colleagues, I can assure of our commitment to doing our utmost
to achieve that object in the months and the years ahead.
As a result of the question I think the Ambassador of Botswana raised and Mr. Naidoo
dodged and the Ambassador of South Africa answered, let me put forward a proposal
here. It hasn’t been discussed, but I think we need to end the meeting on a very
positive note, I think we need to end it on a concrete note, and I think we need to chart
out for ourselves the way ahead. The proposal is this, really, that on the basis of what
we’ve discussed, on the basis of what we’ve heard today, and I think on the basis of
our own context with the Japanese authorities and the various institutions with which
we interact here in Japan—I think we need to come up with a SASTeC/Japan paper on
cooperation in science and technology, a broad paper which presents our thoughts, our
proposals on how we, SADC countries, can cooperate with Japan.
The vice president of JICA who’s again saying there’s been a change in policy at
JICA. That now instead of Japan coming and saying, “This is what we’re going to
do,” they want to hear from Africa saying, “This is what we’d like you to do.” And I
think certainly, in this field of science and technology, our own little community here,
the SASTeC community, and what we’ve done today, and if we distill down what
come out of the meeting today, I think we can come up with a good paper which can
maybe serve as a basis for discussion with the Japanese on how we can concretely
take this process forward. So we need to come up with that paper, and as a suggestion
we could do that during the month of March, I think we should give ourselves,
perhaps, until the end of March to come up with a first draft. That we can do here on
the basis of a drafting team which can be put together between and amongst your
offices from the various embassies, the SADC embassies here.
And we can discuss the composition of that later; I think we just want to look at the
broad concept now. We come up with a paper, and that is then sent back to our
capitals, and it can be sent back to the SADC secretariat as well. We ask our capitals,
the relevant authorities in our capitals for input, and then they send it back to us here.
So we now have a broader document which includes comments and input from our
capitals. And on the basis of that, we then meet here again as SASTeC, perhaps in
June we meet here, to finalize that paper, which will now have the input from
headquarters, it’ll have the input hopefully from the SADC Secretariat, and it may
have even some input from the Council of Ministers or Ministers responsible for
science and technology meeting together. This is something which we’d have to look
20/09/06 - Final 66
at, and of course it would be ideal if we could do that. And I think this provides a
concrete outcome from today, it allows us to move forward, and it allows us to keep
the pressure up a little bit, if I could put it that way. So I put that before you as a
proposed way forward, as a concrete outcome of today, and we can finalize details on
it perhaps a little bit later.
It remains for me then really to thank the organizers, and all the participants of
today’s workshop, and of course all those who’ve attended and have contributed to
the debate and the discussions. A special word of thanks to our keynote speaker, Mr.
Nakano from JBIC, and to the Directors General Nishigahiro and Otabe, we of course
appreciated their time very much and their most valuable contributions to our
discussion. I think a very sincere thanks to Mr. Naidoo as well, who traveled long way
to be here with us today; I think, Ambassador Ngubane, you should let him stay for a
little bit longer. And finally, a very special word of thanks to the Ambassador of
South Africa and his team who’ve been so instrumental in setting up SASTeC and to
get it running. And now, of course, it’s up to us all to keep it running and to make it
successful. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.

Embassy
I think on this note I would like to thank Ambassador for the excellent conclusion and
the way forward for us all. Thank you very much; we look forward to meeting again
later.
20/09/06 - Final 67
Contact Information: SASTeC Secretariat
Vuyani Lingela
Counsellor: Science and Technology
South African Embassy in Japan
Tel: +81 3 3265 3366
Fax: +81 3 3265 1108
Email: Lingela@rsatk.com
http://www.science-technology.jp
20/09/06 - Final 68

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International Partnership in Science and Technology for

Economic Development: Africa and Japan

The SASTeC Workshop

The Southern African Science and Technology Community (SASTeC) ................3

Recalling the commitment of the Government of Japan, expressed by Prime Minister

The SADC Committee of Ambassadors in Japan established the Southern African

(a) To increase flows of scientific knowledge and resources to Africa through

(b) To facilitate the participation of Africa as a significant player in the

SASTeC is composed of representatives of the Embassies of the Southern African

NEPAD NEPAD Secretariat

ECOWAS ECCAS SADC EAC IGAD

Other Sectors S&T Sector Agriculture Infrastructure S&T Environment Others

SADC Committee of Senior Officials

SADC Committee of Ambassadors

Figure 1. Governance Structure of SASTeC

(a) Organise events to enhance Africa’s S&T network in Japan

(c) Conduct research and distribute results to members and stakeholders to

Sponsor: South African Embassy in Japan

10h05-10h10 Welcoming Address – H.E. Mr. Oscar Motswagae, Ambassador of

10h10-10h15 Introduction – H.E. Mr. Roosevelt Gondwe, Ambassador of Malawi

13h30-14h45 Discussion Session, Moderator – H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku,

15h55-16h00 Closing Remarks – H.E. Mr. Stuart Comberbach, Ambassador of

“…for developing countries, there is a minimum level of technology capability that

“Director General Nishigahiro’s explanation of how the various S&T institutions in

As SADC Ambassadors in Japan, we have adopted a new organizational structure to

It is imperative, therefore, if the workshop is to succeed, for its outcome to be

Let me conclude my remarks by thanking our host, His Excellency Ambassador

H.E. Mr. Roosevelt Gondwe, Ambassador of Malawi – Introduction

Your Excellencies. The Chairperson of the Committee of Southern African

Mr. Kaname Nakano, Director General, JBIC – Working Models for

They are improvements in investment climate, strengthening the financial sector,

Their answers are four key elements.

Tunisian government is now implementing this project by constructing a new

Mr. Wataru Nishigahiro, Director-General: Science Council of Japan, Cabinet

Another aspect of which is important is that Millennium Development Goals (MDG)

Mr. Dhesigen Naidoo, Deputy Director-General, Department of Science and

And secondly, it is phenomenal in the fact that it was developed in a bottom-up

The third is an increase in involvement in the Southern African science and

Chair, Excellencies, I’ve enjoyed this morning listening to very distinguished

H.E. Mr. Yoichi Otabe, Director-General, Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Before making my preliminary comment, to the paper prepared by Mr. Naidoo. I

Now regarding the document prepared by Mr. Naidoo, I like to express my

H.E. Dr. Ben Ngubane, Ambassador of South Africa

So when we talk in terms of TICAD, we are talking in terms of human security,

Right, before I invite Ambassador Nakamura, I want you to consider what

Mr. Yoshihiro Nakamura, Executive Director, Japan International Labour

H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia

Thank you very much. My name is Minato from International Development of

H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia

A lot of the assistance that is given to Africa to combat HIV-AIDS is palliative. It

H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia

H.E. Mr. Jean Christian Obame, Ambassador of Gabon

In Africa, what we need is infrastructure, social and economic infrastructure. We are

H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia

H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia

H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia

H.E. Mr. Jean Christian Obame, Ambassador of Gabon

H.E. Mr. Oscar Motswagae, Ambassador of Botswana

H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia

H.E. Mr. Godfrey Simasiku, Ambassador of Zambia

H.E. Dr. Ben Ngubane, Ambassador of South Africa

Mr. Dhesigen Naidoo, Deputy Director-General, Department of Science and

H.E. Mr. Oscar Motswagae, Ambassador of Botswana