Riyaz Patel
Japan has pledged support for the development of universal health coverage in South Africa; as well as cooperation in the maritime sector; and in efforts to reform of institutions of global governance.
This emerged during a bilateral session between President Cyril Ramaphosa and Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on the sidelines of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) in Yokohama, Japan.
The two leaders also discussed issues access for South African citrus producers to the Japanese market and to expand training programmes for South Africans in both countries.
Abe said Japan will offer enhanced trade insurance to boost private sector investment in Africa, as Tokyo competes with rival Beijing for influence in the resource-rich continent.
The enhanced insurance would fully cover loans to African governments, affiliated institutions or private companies buying Japanese goods for infrastructure projects in Africa, according to government briefing papers and a state-run firm offering trade insurance.
“Let me make a promise,” Abe told the TICAD summit attended by some African leaders and representatives of international organizations such as the UN and World Bank.
“The Japanese government will do its utmost so that our private-sector investment in Africa, which came to $20 billion over the past three years, will be expanded continuously,” the Japanese PM added.
At the last TICAD conference in the Kenyan capital Nairobi in 2016, Japan pledged $30 billion in public and private support for infrastructure development, education and healthcare in Africa over three years.
Foreign investment in sub-Saharan Africa rose 13% last year to $32 billion, bucking a global downward trend and reversing two years of decline, according to a UN report published in June.
Last September at a summit with African leaders in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged $60 billion in financing for Africa and wrote off some debt for the continent’s poorer nations.
Western critics say the Chinese funding is saddling the continent with unsustainable debt, but Beijing firmly denies that it is engaging in “debt trap” diplomacy.
Earlier, Ramaphosa addressed a Science and Technology forum. “Africa wishes to significantly expand science innovation and technology capacity and to create institutions that will advance our research agenda and directly link our science endeavours to our development priorities,” Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa said, innovation, while important, “must however go beyond solutions for diseases we are keenly researching the development of new technology for innovation in agriculture, as well as encouraging the location of research infrastructure in Africa. Innovation also thrives through partnership between government and business.”
“We wish to encourage global pharmaceutical companies to locate at least one of their innovation laboratories in an African country and to invest in young full time African researchers,” South Africa’s President said.
He added that it was time that Africa’s voice in the discourse on science and technology be heard.
“The science and technology in society forum has successfully changed global discourse on the role of science in development we seek the forum support in changing the discourse on the role of Africa in science and innovation.”
