Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi inaugurated the seventh edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Yokohama on Wednesday.
The three-day summit is held under the theme, “Promoting African Development through Peoples, Technology and Innovation”, with the participation of a number of African leaders, representatives of the United Nations, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the African Union Commission (AUC) and the World Bank.
The summit focuses on issues of cooperation between Japan and African countries by encouraging private investment and innovation and promoting stability and peace.
In his opening speech, Abe expressed his country’s keenness to support sustainable development efforts and investments on the African continent, emphasizing the importance of dealing with climate issues and the need for technological innovation.
Sisi, whose country holds the rotating presidency of the African Union in 2019, looked forward to a tangible and viable outcome of the TICAD 7 summit to boost cooperation between Japan and the AU.
The Egyptian president also called for intensifying scientific and development cooperation with Japan to take advantage of Africa’s natural capacities in order to diversify its energy sources by supporting renewable and clean energy projects, contributing to mitigating the environmental impacts of climate change.
On behalf of Africa, he invited international private sector institutions and international multinational companies to invest in the continent.
He also called on international, continental and regional financial institutions to finance development projects and to provide financial guarantees for the continent’s capacity-building that would contribute to the promotion of trade and increase investments.
Japanese investment in the Dark Continent has recent years reached about $20 billion, according to the Japanese prime minister.
