Japan will bring up problems in Africa at the July summit of the Group of Eight nations in Okinawa, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Thursday in Kuala Lumpur.
"We want to bring global attention to the problems of Africa," Special Assistant to the Foreign Minister Shinsuke Horiuchi told reporters at the end of a three-day Asia-Africa forum in the Malaysian capital.
Horiuchi heads the Tokyo International Conference on African Development, a Japan initiative established in 1993 with the support of the U.N. Development Program and the Global Coalition for Africa to "keep the development agenda of Africa on the forefront by mustering support for it."
Besides the G8 countries, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan would also be informed of the outcome of the forum.