On Monday, June 3, the Graduate School of System Design and Management (SDM) 10th Anniversary Lecture, "Taro Kono talks ODA," was held at the North Hall on Mita Campus.
In the lecture, Foreign Minister Kono introduced the specific outcomes of Japan’s technical and financial cooperation, and discussed the particular importance of technical cooperation such as support for judicial development. He also mentioned the vital role of the financial support that Japan received from the United States for post-war reconstruction, and described international cooperation as a bilateral process of "give-and-take." Following the lecture, Professor Naohiko Kotake of SDM moderated a dialogue between Foreign Minister Kono and the students in attendance. A diverse range of questions were fielded from both the students of SDM and their peers at the Faculty of Science and Technology and School of Medicine, and Foreign Minister Kono offered considered responses to all questions.
At the end of the event, Foreign Minister Kono told the students in the venue, which was filled to capacity, that he hoped they would take an interest in work relating to international cooperation, and not just at government agencies. He went on to convey his hopes that they would become human resources active in international society with a command of a multitude of languages in addition to English including Chinese and French.