YOKOHAMA — The defining phrase of this year's Tokyo International Conference on African Development was "Towards a Vibrant Africa." But what does this mean to the TICAD participants?
For the Japanese government and many African leaders, the word vibrant seems to convey the idea of achieving greater economic growth by boosting direct investment, official development assistance and infrastructure-building.
Indeed, the African leaders and even the heads of most nongovernmental organizations at TICAD welcomed Japan's pledge to double ODA and Japanese private-sector investment in Africa over the next five years.