English Translation of the Article for Femmes dAfrique ; 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 dAfrique ; 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 Yaound 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 Yaound and luckily, I could participate
in the various seminars for Tokyo International Conference on African Development
(TICAD V) in Yokohama during May 31
st
to June 3
rd
, 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
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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.