Prime Minister Fumio Kishida may be facing declining approval ratings for his Cabinet at home, but he exercised significant leadership abroad this past weekend at the eighth summit of the Tokyo International Conference on African Development by substantiating Japan’s contribution to global health and health security.
Held in Tunisia on Saturday and Sunday, TICAD is Japan’s multilateral and multisectoral initiative that brings together leaders from African countries and their development partner countries with heads of international and regional organizations, civil society and private sector partners.
Although Kishida could no longer attend the forum in person after testing positive for COVID-19, he participated virtually to announce a record-breaking commitment to advance global health security, pledging up to $1.08 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund). Japan’s pledge will contribute to the Global Fund’s seventh replenishment, i.e., its three-year budget (2024-2026) totaling $18 billion, and is approximately an increase of 30% from Japan’s pledge three years ago.