APO: Attendance of Prime Minister Abe at a meeting “A Call to Invest: Investing in Youth Jobs in Africa”

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In the evening 26 September (local time), Mr. Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, who is visiting New York to attend the 73rd United Nations General Assembly, attended a high-level meeting titled “A Call to Invest: Investing in Youth Jobs in Africa.” The meeting was co-hosted by the United Kingdom and Canada, and co-chaired by Rwanda and Ghana. The overview of the meeting is as follows.

1. In the beginning, The Rt Hon May MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and H.E. Mr. Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations welcomed the participants of the meeting, and pointed out that the issue of youth unemployment has become a big problem in Africa as well as investment is highly important to solve this problem. Also, the Right Honourable Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, H.E. Mr. Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda and H.E. Mr. Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana as co-host and co-chair countries touched the same point.

2. (1) Prime Minister Abe mentioned that Japan has promoted African development under the dual principals of African “ownership” and international “partnership” since the launch of TICAD in 1993 and presented Japan’s efforts of human resource development and promotion of private investment in the context of investing in youth jobs in Africa.

(2) Regarding human resource development, he presented the ABE initiative, which was launched at TICAD V by Prime Minister Abe himself to provide the opportunity for 1000 of young African men and women to study in Japanese universities and to experience internships at Japanese enterprises, as well as and the job training for African youth. Prime Minister Abe stated that Japan reinforces its efforts for human resource development towards TICAD 7 in August next year.

(3) Regarding the promotion of private investment, Prime Minister Abe also mentioned Japan-Africa Public-Private Economic Forum which was launched in TICADVI was held in Johannesburg in May, and approximately 2000 people including 100 of Japanese companies participated in the forum. Prime Minister Abe stated that towards TICAD 7 in August next year, Japan will continually invest for the future of Africa under public-private partnership.

3. Other participants explained their effort to solve the problem of youth unemployment in Africa and expressed their expectations for solving the problem through investment.

(Participants)

(1) Co-host countries
The Rt Hon May MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Right Honourable Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada

(2) Co-chair countries
H.E. Mr. Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda
H.E. Mr. Akufo-Addo, President of the Republic of Ghana

(3) Other participants
H.E. Mr. Kenyatta, President of the Republic of Kenya
H.E. Mr. Nyusi, President of the Republic of Mozambique
H.E. Mr. Patrice Athanase Guillaume Talon, President of the Republic of Benin
H.E. Mr. Daniel Kablan Duncan, Vice President of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire
H.E. Mr. Antonio Manuel de Oliveira Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations
Ms. Amina Mohammed, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations
High-level officials from countries and international organizations

Business leaders
Leaders from youth of Africa

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan.