So here we are at another conference on Africa, full of Africans, held outside Africa at an Asian economic powerhouse. This all sounds very familiar. In 2007 the African Development Bank Group held its Annual Meetings in Shanghai, China, from May 16-17. It is easy to become cynical. What is the world coming to, after all, when Africans are unable to host their own meetings? How can the African Development Bank take its annual meeting to Shanghai, is there no African city that can host our top bankers and economists? Why do 40+ African Heads of State have to fly half way across the world to Japan to sit down and discuss issues of crucial importance to the continent? It is easy to become cynical of the whole TICAD process and dismiss it as yet another example of the never-ending talking shop of conferences on Africa.
That would be unfortunate position to take and would be missing the point. The multitude of problems facing Africa require a dedicated African response. That is established. “African solutions to African problems” is the rallying cry heard from cabinet rooms to street corners across the African continent. These African solutions, however, cannot exist in isolation from the rest of the world. Rather active, positive and accountable engagement with partners is required. These partners may be development organisations such as the numerous UN bodies, these partners could be individual countries, such as Japan and China. China is one of the 24 Non-Regional Members of the African Development Bank and only the second to host the Annual Meetings after Spain in 2001. Japan launched TICAD in 1993 to promote high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and development partners.
At TICAD the focus is on two general objectives: Ownership and Partnership.
- to promote high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and their partners
- to mobilize support for African-owned development initiatives
Rather than viewing these occasional meetings hosted for Africans outside African as an insult to our independence we should consider them an alternative type of forum, which may just produce some concrete results. After all our African Heads of State gather regularly across the continent at African Union meetings and the results of those meetings usually leave a lot to be desired. Take the African Union meeting earlier this year in Addis Ababa held while Kenya was at the height of violence, a situation the Heads of State refused to address as they collectively buried their heads in the sand. Meetings being held in African is no guarantee for success.
Another advantage of holding a high level meeting such as TICAD outside Africa is that it removes the pressure of acting as host from all nations leaving the Heads of State and ministers to concentrate fully on engaging with each other positively. It is an added advantage that TICAD is hosted by the very efficient yet extremely polite Japanese people (and I am not just saying that because I am a sitting on a 16MB broadband connection – although it helps). Heads of State are ferried from one venue to the other rapidly and safely with none of the megalomania that usually accompanies our African presidential security details.
Japan has proved herself to be a host worth listening to because she listens and acts on what she hears. The TICAD process is very much one of dialogue. This is reflected in the growing support for the process. At TICAD III in 2003 23 Heads of State came to Tokyo, this time round the number has double to over 40 Heads of State/Heads of Governments attending. Every single African country, bar one, has a strong delegation here. The only country without a delegation is Somalia. One clear indicator of political success in Africa would be a strong Somali delegation at TICAD V in five years time.
[Photo Credit: Heads of State/Government at TICAD IV. Copyright: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan]
TICAD IV
TICAD
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