Ethiopia should have a new and indigenous diplomatic model that enables it to get a niche in global political faculty. At this moment in time, Ethiopia needs unique diplomatic idea to set the country free from the challenges that impact self-reliance. It can learn a lot from countries in handling diplomatic missions in a farsighted manner.
Among these countries, for its esteemed readers, The Ethiopia Herald has invited an expert in the sector from Japan.
As it is known Japan has robust relation with Ethiopia, other Africa countries and with the world in general, when it comes to implementing long term and vibrant diplomatic strategies and tactics.
The writer can say that the nation’s diplomacy is one-size-fits- all approach with term reference of other countries, particularly Japan.
In this issue, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Kono Taro once said that the world is currently going through a significant period of change. Economic globalization has further opportunities for worldwide growth as well as creats dysfunctional impacts for the world society.
As to him, this has also led to the widening of social and economic disparities, to increase migration and to allow protectionism. The international order is based on fundamental values such as freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law and respect of international law. In order to protect and bolster these rules based on international order, Japan must play an even proactive role.
He further stated that six priority areas continue to be at the center of Japan’s foreign policy. First, Japan is strengthening the Japan and U.S. alliance and working to enhance the networks of allies and partners. Second, it is enhancing relationships with neighboring countries in light of the security environment around Japan. Thirdly, it is promoting free trade and contributing to address global issues. And Japan is advancing diplomatic efforts toward the Middle East as well as promoting efforts for achieving a free and open indo-pacific relationship.
Including cyber diplomacy, Japan also needs to tackle a wide array of issues, debate on weapons with cutting edge technologies. Japan will never conduct diplomacy backed by military power, he indicated.
In having Japan relations with Africa in diplomatic mission, Japan diplomatic blue book 2019 pointed out that Africa has been facing long standing challenges such as, political unrest, severe disparities, poverty, vulnerable health system, the rise of violent extremism, the lack of unemployment mainly affecting youth, and the deteriorating financial and investment climate due to increasing public debt.
Overcoming these challenges is crucial for peace and stability of the international community.
The journal book remarked that in 1993, Japan started the Tokyo International conference on Africa development under the principles of respect for African ownership and partnership with the international community. Since then, with other co-organizers such as, United Nations, United Nations Development Program, World Bank and African Union Commission, Japan has supported Africa’s efforts. In Tokyo conference, the member countries reaffirmed to secure international standards in aid, including debt sustainability and promoting public-private partnership.
Japan has a particular and prioritization diplomatic mission in East Africa— Uganda, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Union of Comoros, Djibouti, Seychelles, Sudan, Tanzania, Madagascar, South Sudan, Mauritius and Rwanda.
On the diplomatic handbook, among the East Africa countries, Ethiopia is referred as it is a country of more than 100 million citizens. This implies that Ethiopia has the largest population in the East Africa. The country plays an important role in the region. It is home to the headquarters of the Africa Union. It is also the seat of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. Political and economic reforms have advanced in the country since the inauguration of the Prime Minister’s leadership. Ethiopia announced the re-establishment of the diplomatic relations with Eritrea for the first time in 20 years following a prolonged border conflict and signed the joint declaration of peace and friendship.
In deepening Japanese ties with the world, Ethiopia should learn from the diplomatic mission of Japan. In this case, Japanese play a big role in visa provision for global diplomacy relation. The diplomatic blue book illustrates the government of Japan has set new goals for the number of foreign visitors to 40 million in 2020 and 60 million in 2030. To attain such result, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan examined and implemented strategic relaxation of visa requirements from the perspective of promoting people to people exchanges, strengthening bilateral relations, among others.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan is pressing ahead with working on the relaxation of visa requirements in order to increase the number of visitors to Japan, while maintaining Japan as the safest country in the world. This helps a lot to making Japan a tourism oriented country both in quality and quantity through attracting the wealthy class, repeat visitors and young generation.
The other strategic tactic is the active engagement in international community through means of international organizations and non-governmental organizations, recruitment of overseas cooperation volunteers and cooperation with local government in terms of development cooperation as well as creation partnership in other major diplomatic areas.
The diplomatic blue book is termed the active role of Japanese in international organizations key for diplomatic mission of Japan. International organizations are founded to serve the common interest of the international community. People of various nationalities join these international organizations and draw their skills and traits to create an environment where people of the world can live in peace and enjoy prosperity. There are many international organizations working to solve global issues that cannot be addressed by individual countries in the areas of conflict prevention, sustainable development, food, energy, humanitarian issues and human rights, gender equality, among others.
“Talented individuals with specialized knowledge, passion and capabilities to contribute to the worlds interests are needed so that international organizations can competently perform their duties and fulfill the roles expected of them. In order for each international organization to pursue its agenda, policy contributions and budgets are inevitable. In this case, Japan makes contributions in terms of human resource through active roles of Japanese staff. The handbook further noted that currently, about 850 Japanese nationals are working as professional level staff in United Nations’ related agencies around the world. As a result, the number of Japanese employees continue to increase in the international organizations. This shows that the expansion of Japans personnel contributions. The Government of Japan has set the objective of increasing the number of Japanese staff working at United Nations’ related agencies to 1,000 by 2025. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan is actively engaged in recruitment, training and supporting in collaboration with universities, related ministries and agencies. In general, nationals of Japan play active roles in the global stage.
In the activities of non-governmental organizations in Japan’s diplomatic mission, Ethiopia can be considered to involve in the humanitarian mission in the Horn of Africa. In this respect, the other diplomatic strategy and tactics of Japan is exploring non-governmental organizations.
The diplomatic blue book described as in the interest of leveraging the capabilities of organizations outside the Japanese government to conduct all- Japan diplomacy, non-governmental organizations are becoming increasingly important as organizations providing support to various nations, including developing countries. It is estimated that in Japan there are over 400 non-governmental organizations engaged in international cooperation activities. Most of NGOs are familiar with local needs at the grassroots level and provide flexible, detailed support in developing countries to mitigate various challenges of poverty, natural disaster and conflict, among others. Japans NGOs play a lot in development cooperation. Through NGOs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan actively provides official development assistance in a way of financial cooperation in the form of grant assistance for economic and social development projects implemented by Japanese NGOs in developing countries.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan cooperates with NGOs in areas as other than development cooperation of social and human right issues as well as disarmament. And Japan overseas cooperation volunteers are also in the mission of world diplomacy. It is a Japan International Cooperation Agency program aimed at cooperation and assistance for the economic and social development of the communities of developing countries. Cooperation with local governments is also one of the priority issues of the cabinet of Japan’s government
The Ethiopian Herald March 29/2020
BY MEHARI BEYENE
