On May 23rd, the 1st International Cooperation Talk Show was held at the General Library in Yoshida Campus. In 2020, our university was selected for the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology’s funding project, “Inter-University Exchange Project”, which supports the exchange with African countries. It was held jointly with Japan Cooperation Agency (JICA). This event was also distributed online, and there were about 20 students, faculty and staff members on-site, and 8 people from online.

This first time, we set the theme as “What’s happening in Africa Now!”. The three speakers talked about the current situation in Africa from various aspects of their expertise and experience.

The first speaker, Specially Designated Professor TOMIMOTO Ikufumi of the Faculty of Economics (Senior Advisor of Vice President for International Cooperation), explained an overview of the African region using statistical data. Then, From the perspective of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) advocated by the United Nations, he touched on the current situation and challenges of Sub-Saharan countries. He also introduced Japan’s international cooperation and YU’s international collaboration against it.

Next, Mr. Gebreslasie Abraham Meles, a first-year master’s course student at the Graduate School of Economics, started his talk with mentioned that May 24th, the next day of the event, was the Independence Day of his home country, Eritrea. Then, he introduced Eritrea’s historical background, cultures such as language and food habits, as well as the challenges such as starvation and desertification. In particular, the country belongs to the region known as the “Horn of Africa,” and the biggest problem is political instability caused by ethnic conflicts in various parts of the country. At the end of the presentation, he talked about his life in Yamaguchi. From his slide, we can see he has been having a fruitful study abroad life.

The final speaker was Ms. OGAWA Mana, Coordinator for International Cooperation at the JICA Yamaguchi Desk. Ms. Ogawa introduced an outline of JICA’s projects, achievements so far, and her experiences as a member of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers when she was involved in managing the production and sales of hand-woven baskets made by local people in Kenya. In her experiences, she suggested important points in international cooperation by the four perspectives that Ms. Ogawa kept in mind in her daily activities: “New perspective from Japan,” “Working together (trust, next step),” “Sustainability (themselves),” and “Self-motivation”.

In the question and answer session after each talk, students raised various questions and it was lively.

We plan to hold this talk show series regularly, and the next one will be around July. Through this event, we would like to provide an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the African region and we hope this event leads to an increase in the momentum for promoting exchange with the African region both inside and outside the university. The lecture will be posted on the university website later.