BY BETELHEM BEDLU
ADDIS ABABA– The Japanese government has pledged to put utmost effort to support the effective realization of the national dialogue process in Ethiopia. During her stay with The Ethiopian , Ambassador of Japan to Ethiopia, Ito Takako stated that supporting the efforts geared towards holding a national dialogue is her government’s best interest.
“There are many challenges that we would like to make our best efforts to support and to bring peace and stability for this country and for the people to have better life,” she underscored. Reminding that the Japanese government has been supporting rehabilitation and reconstruction activities undertaken in Amhara, Afar and Tigray states, the Ambassador reiterated that they are preparing and waiting for the official announcement of the Ethiopian government of how much it would require for the recovery works.
“We have been providing the emergency humanitarian assistance to the northern part of Ethiopia;recently, we’ve announced an additional food and security assistance worth 3.5million USD for the people affected by the conflict and drought through WFP,” said the Ambassador. She said her government has been continuously providing life saving emergency assistance to IDPs, people affected by drought and conflict through UNHCR and WFP. In the same manner, she stressed that they are looking in to the latest situation to see what they can do for the people affected by drought in Borena as well as other areas.
The Ambassador further emphasized that since humanitarian assistance is responding, a lot is needed to be done to prevent and minimize the impact. She expressed her team in the embassy and JICA’s readiness to jointly work with the Ethiopian government on the irrigation issues and how to have more agricultural works in those affected areas. By the same token, she mentioned that Ethiopia is one of the countries where Japanese business people are interested to invest in. Nonetheless, she stressed that the nation has to be peaceful and stable to attract the business people.
She said: “There are many opportunities and potentials that we can develop together such as climate change, food production as well as the issue of women and children. In order to do so, we need to have stronger ties.” “Currently, our efforts are concentrated on the humanitarian assistance but our cooperation could even become wider in scope and larger in scale,” she added.
THE ETHIOPIAN TUESDAY 14 MARCH 2023
