From March 26 to 29, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) (1) Annual Meeting was held in Busan, South Korea. JICA President Akihiko Tanaka participated in a side event as a panelist, a high level seminar entitled “New Horizons in Latin America and Caribbean - Asia Development Cooperation,” co-organized by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the IDB.
This high level seminar was organized with the aim of deepening discussions on new possibilities in development cooperation between Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and Asia. During the seminar, common challenges in development for both regions were discussed. Then triangular cooperation and South-South Cooperation were also focused as effective approaches toward solutions to connect both regions further. Apart from Tanaka, Luis Albert Moreno, president of the IDB, Takahiko Nakao, president of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Yi Gang, deputy governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBC) and administrator of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), Duk-Hoon Lee, president of the Export-Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM), and Kyttack Hong, chairman and CEO of the Korea Development Bank (KDB) joined as panelists and the seminar drew a high level of attention from participants in the Annual Meeting.
At the panel discussion
During the panel discussion, Tanaka emphasized three points as major common challenges in both regions: i) infrastructure improvement, ii) the reinforcement of economic competitiveness, and iii) disaster risk reduction. As for infrastructure improvement, Tanaka cited a great difference in the situation of port facilities in both regions as an example, and referred to the importance of promoting port improvement in LAC regions for deepening and further developing the trade relationship between LAC and Asia. He also mentioned the importance of human resource development for the reinforcement of economic competitiveness. Regarding disaster risk reduction, he presented JICA’s efforts under the cooperation with Chile through the “Disaster Risk Reduction Training Program for LAC,” (2) and he appealed for the need to share knowledge among LAC and Asia.
JICA President Tanaka makes remarks during the high level seminar.
Using the “triangular cooperation” by which JICA facilitates knowledge sharing among LAC and Asia, JICA has been supporting a variety of sectors such as small and medium-sized enterprises, biodiversity and disaster risk reduction. Also JICA will make efforts actively on global issues in which further regional cooperation is expected, by triangular cooperation among other schemes. JICA will advance cooperation with other development partners for improving development effectiveness and sustainability.
Note:
- 1 . The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) was founded in 1960 following the decision at the meeting of the Organization of American State in 1959. It is headquartered in Washington D.C. and 48 countries are affiliated as of 2015. Japan participated in the IDB in 1976 as the first country from Asia. The annual meeting is organized once a year to confirm and discuss its organization policy and also issues such as economic and social development as well as direction of development cooperation.
- 2 . In August 2014, JICA signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) with the Chilean International Cooperation Agency (AGCI) for supporting the idea of human resource development for disaster risk management.
On March 19 2015, AGCI and JICA signed the Record of Discussions (R/D) on the Project for “Disaster Risk Reduction Training Program for Latin America and the Caribbean.”
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