K4.7b aid to boost ties

 JAPANESE Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed his intention to strengthen cooperation with Papua New Guinea through the K4.7 billion (20 billion Yen) overseas development assistance (ODA).

Abe announced this in a Japan-PNG Joint Statement after a summit meeting with his PNG counterpart, Peter O’Neill last Thursday night.

This money will be expanded in the fields of infrastructure development and human resources development, including the project for comprehensive development in the Lae-Nazab area of Morobe.

It will promote cooperation in other major areas, including education, disaster risk reduction and climate change from the view point of human security. 

In this regard, Abe announced the assistance package of providing 20 billion Yen on ODA over three years.

O’Neill appreciated Japan’s long-standing development assistance to PNG in areas such as socio-economic infrastructure, human resource development and education.

The two leaders:

• Recognised the need for facilitation in the process of providing technical cooperation to strengthen human resource development, and shared the intention to accelerate consultation on the Agreement on Technical Cooperation between the two countries towards its early conclusion; 
• highly valued the indispensable role of women in development, and shared the intention to cooperate in achieving gender equality in education and employment, and women empowerment; and,
• Noted that Japan and PNG were prone to natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, underscored the importance of creating disaster-resilient societies and shared the intention to strengthen cooperation on disaster risk reduction through the exchange of lessons learned from disasters. The two leaders confirmed their intentions to closely cooperate for Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction held in Sendai City in March 2015.

Abe commended the Autonomous Region of Bougainville for steadily advancing the reconstruction process since the end of the Bougainville conflict in 1998.

He noted with satisfaction that Japan’s ODA project for constructing bridges on Bougainville Coastal Trunk Road was appreciated by the people of Bougainville. 

The two leaders underlined the importance of ensuring peace and stability on Bougainville for steady development and prosperity in the peace-building process and development in the autonomous region with other supporting countries in the region.