Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre landed in Tunis yesterday evening, where he was met by Tunisian Defence Minister Imed Memmich.
Barre will be in the Tunisian capital to attend the eighth edition of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), which will be held from 27 to 28 August.
Nearly 50 African leaders are expected to attend, along with over 200 African civil society and NGO representatives, 108 heads of regional and international agencies, and 120 trade and industry leaders.
Barre is expected to deliver an address at the conference.
It will be the first international conference for high-level discussions between Japan and African countries since the onset of the global pandemic. African leaders last met with Japanese officials in Yokohama for TICAD 7 in 2019.
The event is co-organized by the Japanese government, the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa, the United Nations Development Programme, the African Union Commission, and the World Bank.
According to the Sankei Shimbun, a conservative Japanese daily newspaper, Japan is expected to pledge nearly $30 billion in aid for African development during a conference.
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that this year’s conference would focus on restoring growth and development after the global economic disruption caused by COVID-19, which includes building resilient health systems with debt support and recovery high on the agenda.
The conference will emphasise Japanese-style investment in people and quality of growth, according to Kishida Fumio, Japan’s current Prime Minister and President of the Liberal Democratic Party, who will participate in the conference online while recovering from COVID-19.
Japan’s Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will also be attending the conference
