JICA initiative doubles Sub Saharan Africa’s rice production
Japan International Cooperation Agency ( JICA) has vowed to help Africa recover from the multiple crises of Covid- 19 and Russia/ Ukraine war by effectively using its development experience and promoting co- creation with Africa.
Speaking in a virtual briefing ahead of the eighth edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development ( TICAD 8), JICA Vice President Kato Ryuichi outlined his organisation’s approach under the theme, ‘ Towards a resilient, inclusive, and prosperous Africa - 30 years of TICAD assets & perspective towards TICAD 8.’ With headquarters in Tokyo, JICA was established in 2003 as an Independent Administrative Agency and boasts 96 Overseas Offices as well as 1 domestic offices. According to Ryuichi JICA’s annual volume in 2020 was 1,782billion Japanese Yen ( JPY) or 15 billion USD, which supported some 143 beneficiary countries. He said that with 31 offices in Africa, and 54 countries that were supported in 2020, at a total value of 226 billion JPY or 1, 92 billion USD on loan and grant commitments, JICA is certainly one of the world’s largest bilateral ODA agency. Among the projects that the organisation is undertaking to strengthen resilient and inclusive health systems in Africa, is JICA’s Initiative for Global Health and Medicine. Under this JICA is working with Ghana, DRC, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zambia to strengthen capacities of national core laboratories in Africa; strengthening capacity of disease control experts as well as networking with regional and global disease control initiatives in Africa. As for the Remote intensive care unit ( ICU, the aim is to connect African doctors with their Japanese counterparts to share data and provide advice with remote devices as well as deliver remote training for
African ICU health workers. More exciting is the project to enhance remote treatment support for COVID- 19. On the 30th of March 2022 Japanese lenders – JICA, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation ( SMBC); and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group ( MUFG) signed a 200 million USD loan agreement with the African Export- Import Bank ( Afreximbank) for a project to support Covid 19 response in Africa.
According to Ryuichi the loan will be used to manufacture medical and pharmaceutical products, including vaccine manufacturing lines, development of supply bases for those products, and development of medical and health facilities such as hospitals.
As for promoting food security in Africa and supporting African farmers, Coalition for African Rice Development” ( CARD) is an initiative to support the efforts of rice producing countries in sub- Sahara Africa ( SSA) to increase rice production.
Phase 1 of CARD was incepted in 2008 and ran until 2018 with the aim of doubling rice production in the 23 member countries of Sub Saharan Africa from 14 million tonnes to 28 million tonnes. This target was however surpassed because by 2018, some 31 million tonnes were being produced.
CARD2 which runs from 2019 to 2030 was officially launched during TICAD 7 in Yokohama, Japan in August 2019 with the aim to double rice production by 28 million tonnes to 6 million tonnes in the now 32 member countries in Sub Saharan Africa.
These are some of the initiatives that will be under review at TICAD 8 in Tunis, Tunisia from the 27th to the 28th of August this year. It is expected that at the end of the summit the leaders of Africa plus the co- organisers will sign the Tunis Declaration, which will outline the framework of cooperation for the next four years as well as the financial commitments to realise the projects agreed upon.