On Thursday 16 March 2023, JICA will hold its maiden lecture series – JICA Chair – at Ghana’s premier university, the University of Ghana, Legon-Accra, to share Japan’s unique development experiences.
The event will bring together policymakers, experts, academics, business leaders, the diplomatic corps, civil society organisations, ex-participants who have studied in Japanese universities, all under one roof to exchange ideas, knowledge and experiences.
Japan is considered the world over as the first country to modernise from a non-western background; establishing a free, democratic, prosperous and peace-loving nation based on the rule of law, without losing much of its tradition and identity. In this regard, Japan possess rich experiences and could serve as the best example or blue-print for developing countries to follow in their own quest for development.
The lecture series therefore aims at sharing Japan’s experiences and lessons learned through its modernisation and development cooperation, with the hope that it can lead development studies globally and thereby contribute to sustainable development.
By way of background, JICA in 2018 launched the JICA Development Studies Programme (JICA-DSP) in collaboration with various universities in Japan, with an aim to produce future leaders of developing countries. This programme was designed to offer opportunity for studying respective academic fields at Japanese graduate schools, and Japanese studies which explore Japan’s modernisation and development cooperation experiences in the light of its historical and cultural background.
In a bid to expand the opportunities of such Japanese studies in partner-countries as well, JICA initiated the JICA Chair (JICA Programme for Japanese studies) in collaboration with leading universities of partner countries.
JICA Chair’s activities include short, intensive lectures conducted by lecturers dispatched from Japan on Japan’s development experiences in the fields of politics, economics, public administration, law and others.
This maiden lecture on the theme ‘Japan’s International Cooperation Policy toward Ghana and Africa’ will be led by Prof. Kato Hiroshi, Vice-President-International University of Japan. The event will be associated with Japanese cultural experiences organised by JICA volunteers, as well as reports from ex-participants who studied in Japanese universities.
