Collaboration with "African" JICA

Do you know the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) (hereinafter "AUDA-NEPAD")?

In this article, we will introduce the collaboration between AUDA-NEPAD and JICA to realize Agenda 2063, a long-term goal over a 50-year period.

Firstly, let me introduce “African Union (AU)”. AU, a regional international organization that consists of over 50 African member states, was established in 2002 and headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. (For more details, please refer to the article written by JICA colleague: "May 25th is “Africa Day”.

The AU's two main objectives are 1) conflict prevention and resolution and 2) political, economic and social integration.
Unfortunately, there are still many conflicts in Africa. Once a conflict breaks out in a country, economic activity, education, health services, etc. are greatly reduced or restricted. Therefore, the AU is working to maintain peace, including through arbitration.
In addition, Africa is a continent with area of about 30 million㎡, population of about 1.2 billion and more than 2,000 languages. In order for such a vast continent and such a diverse African people to smoothly carry out economic and social activities, it is necessary to improve a commonality and connectivity of hard and soft infrastructure.

In 2013, the AU announced, "Agenda 2063 (subtitled The Africa We Want)," a long-term goal for the next 50 years. Agenda 2063 is a long-term plan that defines the integration and development of Africa. At the same time, it sets out mid-term goals to be achieved in the first 10 years and then the Second Ten Year Implementation Plan (STYIP) is currently underway. In order to realize Agenda 2063, the active involvement of various African organizations, including the AU, is necessary.

AUDA-NEPAD, the development implementing agency under AU, is responsible for promoting and monitoring the implementation of Agenda 2063. JICA and AUDA-NEPAD signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) in 2014, and have agreed to cooperate in five priority areas ( i) Regional Integration, ii) Kaizen Initiative in Africa, iii) Initiative for Food and Nutrition in Africa (IFNA), iv) Home Grown Solutions (support for local African companies and startups), and v) Policy Bridge Tank (Research)), and hold annual consultations. JICA is currently dispatching five advisors to AUDA-NEPAD which is headquartered in South Africa to promote activities in the areas of cooperation.

For example, "Home Grown Solutions (HGS)" is an initiative that supports local African companies that aim to solve problems in the health and medical field with African-made products and services, taking the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic as an opportunity. Over the past three decades, the initiative has supported 28 companies in 35 countries, contributed to the treatment of 13 million patients, and created 4,600 jobs. As a result, the initiative has attracted the attention of other organizations such as the AfDB and New Zealand, and is expected to expand further.

JICA will continue to contribute to the realization of Agenda 2063 by expanding the various projects and initiatives in African countries to the continental level, including infrastructure, agriculture and private sector development with AUDA-NEPAD.
At the same time, JICA will contribute to deepening the partnership between Japan and Africa, and to expanding investment and business in Africa by the Japanese private sector.