Japan, 2014

Humankind faces serious,

unprecedented crises. Now is the time for us to stand

united beneath the flag of the United Nations to confront

those crises together. Japan is resolved to continue to

take on great responsibility, working hand in hand with

the international community.

The Government of Japan is expending its best

possible efforts in the fight against the Ebola virus.

The international community should come together

to address that crisis, which directly affects the peace

and security of Africa. In that regard, Japan, as one

of its sponsors, has strongly supported the adoption

of Security Council resolution 2177 (2014). Japan has

also supported the initiative of Secretary-General

Ban Ki-moon, and His Excellency Mr. Sam Kahamba

Kutesa, President of the General Assembly, to establish

the United Nations Mission for Ebola Emergency

Response.

At the fifth Tokyo International Conference on

African Development, held in Japan in the past year,

the Government of Japan announced that it would set

aside $500 million to address health issues in Africa

and launch training programmes for some 120,000

health and medical-service providers. As a response to

the Ebola outbreak, we have sent highly knowledgeable

and experienced Japanese experts, as members of

World Health Organization missions. We have also

extended a total of $5 million in financial assistance

and will provide $500,000 worth of personal protective

equipment for health-care workers. Furthermore,

we pledge to extend additional assistance totaling

$40 million in future. We continue to be prepared to

take any other measures, including the possibility of

sending more experts to Africa and sharing a potentially

promising drug developed by Japan’s Toyama Chemical

Company and Fujifilm Holdings Corporation, which

could be effective in the post-exposure phase of Ebola.

The Middle East is in a state of unrest. In particular,

Japan regards the activities of the Islamic State in Iraq

and the Levant — which extends across national borders

and has unilaterally declared the establishment of a so-

called state — as a serious threat to international order.

What is important now is to prevent extremism from

taking root, while responding swiftly to the region’s

humanitarian crises. To assist in that, Japan will provide

$50 million of emergency assistance right away.

Placing great importance on the stability of

Ukraine, in March Japan swiftly announced economic

assistance of up to $1.5 billion, which is now being

implemented. We are also preparing new assistance

towards reconstruction of the eastern part of Ukraine.

Next year will be a momentous one for the United

Nations. We will celebrate its seventieth anniversary.

At the time the United Nations was founded, Japan

was recovering from having been reduced to ashes.

Since then, Japan has never for a moment forgotten the

horrors of war. It set out on its post-war path abhorring

the atrocities of a war that brought tragedy to innocent

people both at home and in other nations and renewing

its pledge towards peace. We have made a wholehearted

commitment to shoulder United Nations responsibilities

at home and abroad.

Japan’s future lies in a straight extension of our

history over the past 70 years. Our pledge to never wage

war will be handed down and fostered by the Japanese

people for generations to come. Peace will take root only

when conflicts are deprived of places to reside within

our hearts and our way of life. That is precisely why

Japan is working to continue taking action at the grass-

roots level around the world. Japan has been, is now

and will continue to be a force providing momentum for

proactive contributions to peace.

Moreover, I wish to state and to pledge, first of all,

that Japan is a nation that has worked to eliminate the

war culture from people’s hearts, and it will spare no

effort in continuing to do so. As early as the mid-1980s,

Japan launched cooperation in Gaza to foster human

resources. A total of more than 400 administrative

officials and technical experts have come to Japan to

receive intensive training. One of them is Mr. Najjar

Osama, a young man serving as an official with the

Palestinian Energy and Natural Resources Authority.

He said:

“Gaza has no natural resources whatsoever.

The only thing we have is people, a situation the

same as Japan’s. What I learned in Japan is the

spirit of never, ever giving up.”

After being educated in Japan for a month, Najjar

Osama brought solar-power technology back to his

hometown, to be attached to the facility in greatest need

of a stand-alone power system. The equipment that he

and his colleagues introduced to the largest hospital

in the Gaza Strip has endured the unrest and kept the

lights on in the hospital’s emergency room.

It is perhaps more than just a coincidence that the

Somalia story I wish to tell also relates to lighting.

The most important thing for Hamidah Hassan — a

girl 10 years of age, living in the camps for internally

displaced persons in Mogadishu — was lighting to

illuminate the camp’s tents at night. A lit tent acts as

a deterrent to sexual violence. Over the past two years,

Japan has distributed to internally displaced persons,

including young girls such as Hamidah, some 2,500

small lanterns, made by Panasonic, that bank electricity

generated from sunlight during the day and convert it

to lamplight at night. Hamidah is now working hard,

dreaming that one day she will become a doctor.

We must continue to clear away anxiety and fear

from people’s hearts and cull any shoots of hatred.

Japan and the Japanese people will continue to do

our best to offer our own willingness and capacity,

knowledge and experience, in order to make that a

reality. First and foremost, we will continue to assist

in enhancing education, which will form the basis of

economic growth for those who need it, from primary

education to vocational training. Our aim, always, is

to internalize the joy of work in people’s nature. We

hope for people to keenly realize that the sweat brought

about by their labour is an investment in the future.

Expanding roads, ports and the increasingly

connected power grids, together with effective

governance that is fully in step with those improvements,

will help to bring about an affluent and peaceful society

that values human rights. When that concept receives

broad-based support, people become the owners of

their society in the truest sense of the word. To expand

that kind of society from a point to a line, and from a

line to a plane, Japan has always sought foundations of

peace. We have always focused our official development

assistance philosophy on that approach.

The banner of a proactive contribution to peace

borne by the Japanese Government is a flag planted

atop the natural development of conviction and self-

confidence that we have acquired through many years

of promoting human security, that is, working as hard

as we could for the development of a society that places

people front and centre. We will carry on with our work,

hoping to create, in time, a fair and just society that

places human beings front and centre and a democracy

that values human rights.

Seventy years ago, the United Nations proclaimed

its determination “to save succeeding generations from

the scourge of war” and to “practice tolerance”. The

United Nations must not depart from those ideals. It

is with exactly that determination that Japan aspires to

join the Security Council once again as a non-permanent

member next year, marking the seventieth year since

the start of the United Nations.

Over the 58 long years since Japan became a

Member of the United Nations in 1956, as its eightieth

Member, Japan has worked tirelessly for the causes of

the United Nations. We believe that our efforts have

been second to none. It is my wish, with the seventieth

anniversary as a turning point, that countries sharing

the same aims can all work together to finally resolve

the long-standing issue of the reform of the United

Nations in a way that reflects the realities of the twenty-

first century. In that context, Japan seeks to become a

permanent member of the Security Council and to take

on an appropriate role that the status requires.

It was on the same occasion last year that I spoke

of the significance and importance of enhancing the

power of women and appealed for us to create a society

in which women shine (see A/68/PV.12). Japan has now

begun to work towards resolving the numerous issues

we face, together with private industries, in order to

increase women’s participation in society as soon as

possible. We must foster environments in which it is

possible to balance child care and nursing care on the

one hand and work on the other. In addition, eliminating

biases about the roles of women that still exist in society

will be basic, more so than anything else.

We have just held a large-scale international

conference with an aim of promoting the dynamic

participation of women. With an eye set on economic

development and the resolution of global issues,

about 100 leaders from all sectors of society from

around the world sent out a message to the world of

their commitment to bringing the power of women to

fruition. In less than a year, the empowerment of women

has become a guiding principle that has driven Japan’s

policies both domestically and overseas. Japan has

focused on advancing the status of girls and mothers

in Africa, a region that receives emphasis within our

foreign aid.

The twentieth century had a history of profound

harm to women’s honour and dignity when conflicts

broke out. Around the globe, we still find abhorrent

circumstances in which women are denied access

to such basic services as medical care and education

merely because they were born female, thereby

depriving them of opportunities to become self-reliant.

Japan seeks to be a country that walks alongside such

women throughout the world. We intend to encourage

and support, throughout the world, the self-reliance of

women whose hearts have suffered grievous harm.

We intend to make the twenty-first century a

world without human rights violations against women.

Japan will stand at the fore and lead the international

community in eliminating sexual violence during

conflicts. Therein lies the reason for Japan to reinforce

its cooperation with Ms. Zainab Bangura’s Office of

the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on

Sexual Violence in Conflict.

Fundamental rights such as education and health

must be ensured everywhere throughout the world. It is

necessary for the United Nations and, indeed, the world

to come together as one to take action so that girls

and boys can attend school equally and that expectant

mothers can receive medical care with peace of mind.

Moreover, in order for women to lead lives full of pride

and hope, I consider it essential to develop their ability

to be economically self-reliant, above all else. I do not

have the slightest doubt that the creation of a society

in which women shine holds the key to changing the

whole of society.

Last year I pledged in my address here, before

the General Assembly, that Japan would implement

assistance in excess of $3 billion over three years,

aimed chiefly at advancing the status of women. The

amount already implemented over the past year is

$1.8 billion, more than half the amount pledged. I also

stated Japan respected the activities of UN-Women,

which is responsible for women’s issues within the

United Nations, and that we intended to become one

of its leading contributors and thus a model country

in that area. Over the past year, Japan increased its

contributions to UN-Women fivefold, and in the future

we will further increase the number of projects we

support. We are also very pleased that next year UN-

Women will open its Tokyo office. I expect that Japan

will further enhance its coordination with the United

Nations through that new office.

As we draw up the post-2015 development agenda,

Japan will continue to be as strongly involved as it

has been to date. However, I strongly urge that if we

are to truly attain inclusiveness, sustainability and

resilience, as put forth in that agenda, then protection

and empowerment of the vulnerable, irrespective of

race, gender, or age, is important.

This year Japan marks the sixtieth anniversary

of the start of its official development assistance

(ODA). Having learned from the determination of

our predecessors, who began working to extend ODA

a mere nine years after suffering total devastation in

war, the Government of Japan is now in the process of

establishing new guiding principles for our ODA. We

intend to once more emphasize as priorities objectives

such as high-quality economic growth, ensuring rule of

law and realizing a peaceful and stable society.

The objectives that Japan has continuously targeted

through its ODA over those 60 years will not change

in the slightest. There will be no change in our deeply

rooted approach in which the most important thing in the

fight against poverty is to cultivate a sense of ownership

among the people concerned and to encourage self-help

efforts. Nor will there be any changes in our efforts to

fully ensure human security. Moreover, as we pursue

enhancing women’s empowerment as the leverage

point, I consider the attainment of our goals to be that

much nearer.

Over the past 20 years Japan has sent about

9,700 people on 13 United Nations peacekeeping

operations. In the 10 years since the establishment of

the Peacebuilding Commission, Japan’s contributions

to the Peacebuilding Fund have surpassed $40 million.

In the future, we intend to cultivate still further our

human resources in terms of both quantity and quality,

to contribute to the area of peacebuilding.

As the only country ever to have suffered the

devastation of atomic bombings during wartime, Japan

is prepared to lead discussions in the Review Conference

of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation

of Nuclear Weapons to be convened next year — the

seventieth anniversary of the atomic bombings.

With regard to North Korea, Japan will work

in coordination with relevant countries towards the

comprehensive resolution of outstanding issues,

including abduction and nuclear and missile issues.

Japan has been among the biggest beneficiaries of

the United Nations. Going forward, we will work harder

than ever to bring about realization of the principles

set forth by the United Nations. Japan is a nation that

implements its pledges without fail. With that, I will

end my discussion.