Asahi newspaper published an op-ed on Triangular Partnership by Takakazu Ito, Senior Programme Officer, Department of Operational Support of the United Nations on 10 January.
May the New Year bring Peace and Stability to the Global Society and Good Health and Happiness to You. (Sukehiro Hasegawa)
A year-end party was held at the French restaurant, Les Cristalline in Aoyama, Tokyo. In addition to the memories of the events that took place this year, the participants talked about how to move forward next year in the meeting of the Board of Directors on February 9.
The moderator, Ms. Mio Sato, Chief of Mission, IOM in Japan, started the session by explaining that Human Mobility has been increasingly addressed as one of the common issues by the international community, as exemplified by that Human Mobility is recognized as one of the core issues for 2030 SDG Agenda of the UN and that two Global Compacts (namely, with respect to refugees and migration) had been introduced at the UN General Assembly on September 19, 2016. Ms. Sato stated that the aim for this session was to discuss Human Mobility in the light of Peacebuilding assistance while addressing the case study of Rohingya Refugees and responses relating to refugees and migration.
In opening the session, Professor Katsumi acting as Moderator said that this session would discuss involvement of major actors including US, China and Japan in tackling with broad issues relating to UN peace operations not limited to UN PKOs but inclusive of peacebuilding activities. He introduced the three Panellists, the Commentator and the Rapporteur.
Mr. Yasushi Akashi looked at how the UN peace operations had evolved over the years in Asia, Europe, Middle East and Africa and pointed out the need to ascertain how Japan can contribute to the UN peace operations in the future. Mr. Akashi served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Representative in Cambodia and in the former Yugoslavia.
2018 Tokyo Peacebuilding Forum was held at JICA Ichigaya Building on December 8, 2018. It was opened by former Under-Secretary-General and Special Representatives of the Secretary-General Mr. Yasushi Akashi and keynote speech was delivered by Ambassador Fumio Iwai, Secretary-General of the Secretariat of the International Peace Cooperation Headquarters of the Cabinet Office of the Government of Japan. Please find the program with pictures of meetings and participants.
HRH Prince Feisal Al Hussein, Co-Founder and Chairman of the Generations for Peace met with GPAJ President Sukehiro Hasegawa, Vice President Mio Sato and Secretary General Masakuni Tanimoto and explained the activities of the Generation for Peace (GFP) since it was founded as a peace-through-sport initiative of the Jordan Olympic Committee in 2007.
Four principles of co-existence, namely non-violence, respect for diversity, sharing and caring, and mutual cooperation were presented by Mr. Ken Inoue of the Global Peacebuilding Association of Japan.
Naoko Kumagai, Associate Professor of International University of Japan, found fact-finding is indispensable for the reinforcement of confidence building and useful for preventive diplomacy measures, in particular early warning and mediation.