The Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR), Cape Town, South Africa, and the East Asian Studies Department at the University of Leeds, England, with support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), co-hosted a policy advisory group seminar in London, England, from 18 to 19 January 2013, on “Accelerating the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) Initiative”. Since 1993, four five-yearly TICAD summits have been held. In June 2013, TICAD V will take place in Yokohama, Japan, under the broad theme of “Transforming Africa for Quality Growth”. Convened five months before the Yokohama conference, the London seminar systematically examined critical issues for this ongoing policy dialogue between Africa’s 55 countries and
Japan, the main partners in the TICAD process. The meeting convened senior Japanese and African policymakers, scholars, and civil society actors to assess the potential for increasing effective African engagement with Japan and to strengthen Africa’s ownership of its own development agenda, as well as to craft concrete recommendations for the Yokohama conference and action plan of 2013-2018.
