Next week's ministerial meeting in Tokyo on African development offers a special opportunity for Japan and other development partners of Africa to renew their commitment to building a better future for that region's 300 million children. Their future ought to be a matter of global concern: In this era of globalization and interdependence, poverty, disease and conflicts that engulf large numbers of people across an entire continent are bound to affect people everywhere.
The world cannot develop in peace, dignity and prosperity when a major region is mired in poverty and suffering. And no country or continent can develop when most of its children face death, malnutrition and illiteracy.
At the time of the first Tokyo International Conference on African Development in 1993, it was the children of Africa whose needs were most acute. Yet it is in Africa that the least progress has been made in the past decade. Sub-Saharan Africa has only 10 percent of the world's population but it accounts for 43 percent of child deaths, 49 percent of maternal deaths, 70 percent of people with HIV/AIDS and 90 percent of AIDS orphans. Achieving the goal of lowering global under-5 mortality, maternal mortality and HIV/AIDS infection rates hinges on progress in Africa.