On 18th May, the 68th Open Regular Dialog on GII/IDI was held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) with six MOFA and 14 NGO member representatives attending.

Regarding the UNGASS Review, MOFA announced that four people from civil society (a Person Living with HIV/AIDS, a youth representative, a representative of a NGO working in the field of HIV/AIDS, and from an International Cooperation NGO) would participate in the official Japanese delegation as advisers.

This was one of the major points that GII/IDI NGOs requested in their recommendations to the Japanese government in March (cf. JOICFP eNews May 2006)

Further discussion on statements to be made by the Japanese delegation and declarations to be delivered at UNGASS was also held.

Africa

In June 2005, Japan launched the Health and Development Initiative (HDI) to strengthen its assistance in tackling health issues in developing countries. (cf. JOICFP eNews July 2005)

At the G8 Summit in July 2005, development of Africa became a major topic and Japan announced overall Africa assistance measures, including committing US$5 billion over the next five years to the HDI to achieve health MDGs, especially in Africa.

In May 2006, Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi made a speech at African Union Headquarters in Addis Ababa, and highlighted an action plan that Japan has developed to combat infectious diseases in Africa to better implement activities under the HDI.

The plan focuses on five major countermeasures against:

a) HIV/AIDS
b) Malaria and Tuberculosis
c) Polio
d) Parasitic diseases
e) Emerging infectious diseases, including avian flu

NGOs positively evaluated the launch of this action plan while pointing out to MOFA that the scheduled activities tend to be stated from technical aspects, making the vision of the action plan vague.

Both MOFA and NGOs agreed that GO-NGO cooperation should be further promoted to carry out the action plan.

Progress on further discussion of this action plan will be reported in JOICFP eNEWS.

(Click here for PDF on Japan's new action plan to combat infectious diseases in Africa)