English Translation of the Article for Femmes d’Afrique ; N° 43 July 2013, P. 6 - 10

Hiroko NAGAO 1

Productive Approach to Expand Japan-Africa Relations

With Reflections from the Practical Peacebuilding in Central

African Republic and the TICAD V

I was deployed to Central African Republic (CAR) in mid-August, 2011 as a United

Nations Volunteer. This was my first experience to live and work in Africa. I have been

eager to work for peacebuilding and conflict prevention for fragile and unstable

countries especially since I have obtained my master degree in Conflict Resolution at

the University of Bradford in UK in 2007. I had been seeking this opportunity since

before 2007, but it was very difficult to enter this field. There are many well trained

Japanese who would like to contribute in this peacebuilding field, but the career path is

still very limited particularly for the entry level such as Japanese youth who do not

have the field experiences in this area.

Thus, I was very fortunate to get this opportunity to work for a country such as CAR

which has been facing serious issues in areas of humanitarian, peacebuilding/

peacekeeping and development. During the first year in CAR, I was working as a Peace

Building Support Officer at the United Nations Peacebuilding Fund Secretariat Office

in Bangui with 7 other national Central African colleagues. As the Secretariat, we had a

role to monitor 14 peacebuilding projects (USD 20 million since 2010 to 2012) in post

conflict areas in the country and also to facilitate the smoother project implementation

by coordinating with the executing partners such as various UN agencies, national

authorities, national and international NGOs and national associations. I regularly

participated in field missions to monitor the projects in post conflict zones and these

precious experiences made me realize the real issues and causes which this country has

been facing for many decades and has not been able to get out of the humanitarian

phase. I perceived deep rooted acute problems such as lack of security, governance,

education, medical services, infrastructure, industries and justice in one of the poorest

countries in the world. Furthermore, hopelessly, this forgotten country has not been

able to attract enough attention to bring sufficient appropriate human resources to

tackle the countless challenges although the country is rich in resource.

Throughout my stay in CAR, I had many chances to interact with various Central

African people. In CAR, there are very limited Japanese, almost no Japanese and

moreover, there is no Japanese Embassy. On the other hand, there are so many

TOYOTA cars running everywhere in the country and very old taxis of NISSAN used car.

They love Japan and Japanese technology while ironically, almost no Japanese know

about the country called CAR and that it exists on the earth. Even during the coup that

English Translation of the Article for Femmes d’Afrique ; N° 43 July 2013, P. 6 - 10

Hiroko NAGAO 2

just recently occurred on March 24, 2013 in CAR, as far as I know, probably only one or

two newspapers reported this news in Japan. At this time, since last December, I was

evacuated twice from Bangui to Yaoundé in Cameroon on December 26th and March

25th due to the very urgent security crisis. The second evacuation was especially

shocking because we experienced the whole day of the coup while staying at the UN

peacebuilding mission compound. For the whole day, the shootings and lootings were

happening everywhere in the capital city of Bangui even right next to the UN compound.

It was very difficult even to go to the airport and a day after in the evening, finally, we,

most of us as non-essential staff could barely make it to the airport thanks to the

French military escort.

I came back to Japan after the evacuation to Yaoundé and luckily, I could participate

in the various seminars for Tokyo International Conference on African Development

(TICAD V) in Yokohama during May 31st to June 3rd, 2013. I was amazed that numerous

private companies from different sectors also actively participated in this big event to

seek for opportunities to start new business or any interactions with partners in African

countries. A great number of Japanese citizens also gathered at the venue and were

very interested in seeing the special local products or cultures in Africa while each

country had a booth to exhibit the country. Almost all countries in Africa including the

Somali President from newly established government just last year participated in

TICAD V, however, very sadly, CAR could not take part in this event.

Through my own working and living experience in CAR and the reflection of TICAD

V, I felt that both African countries and Japan have a strong will to work as partners to

develop Africa and challenge diverse critical issues. I also know that African people

have high expectations and trust Japan with “Japanese brand and national identity” as

high technology, sincerity, hard work, values of harmony and respect, unique proud

culture and rapidly developed country after the devastating World War II (WWII).

Nevertheless, as a main means to assist African countries, the Japanese government

has been contributing the substantial amount of funding to the United Nations and

each UN agency in various African countries. But not just providing the fund, Japan

should use more strategies by sending Japanese human resource to work in Africa or for

Africa. For example, Japan has been facing grave problems of fast aging of the

population. Now, the biggest generation who contributed the most during the

high-speed growth in Japan after the WWII has been retiring at the age of 60 or 65. But

they can still work at least another 10 more years. Thus, Japanese society such as the

Japanese government, NGOs, or private/public sectors should fully utilize this

experienced senior generation as the human resource to recover the Japanese economy

English Translation of the Article for Femmes d’Afrique ; N° 43 July 2013, P. 6 - 10

Hiroko NAGAO 3

as well as to develop African economy.

As a practical Peacebuilder, I have seen people suffering who need

income-generating activities and have perceived a lot of potentials to create new

business for these pressing people with partners like Japanese private companies and

NGOs. However, I recognize the great need for the human resource which is able to

bridge between the peacebuilding field and the business sector. In order to effectively

support the inclusive dynamic development in African continent, it is essential for the

Japanese government to promote these policies for facilitating the private companies to

penetrate into the market in Africa as well as for increasing the presence of Japanese

NGOs and human resource of Peacebuilders in any organizations. In order for ideally

playing the demanded role of Japan, this approach is crucial to foster the productive

partnership for both Africa and Japan as well as for a constructive future of the world.