AUICK Newsletter No.49 AUICK Committee Meetings

Meetings of AUICK Executive Committee

Executive Committee

Regular Meeting on 26 March 2007

The AUICK Executive Committee held its second regular meeting of FY2006 at Kobe City Hall on Monday, 26 March 2007.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Tatsuo Yada, Chairman of AUICK (Mayor of Kobe), reiterated AUICK’s determination to move ahead toward its goals, as the year 2007 marks the last year of the new strategic project.

First, the Secretariat presented an activity and budget plan for FY2007 and all the bills were unanimously approved. There was a suggestion that AUICK should make it clear in the report how much financial support was received from Kobe City Government. Then the members were informed of the outlines of the First 2007 Workshop and Open Forum (UNFPA Seminar).

Following the reports, the Secretariat expressed deep appreciation for Dr. Toshio Kuroda, Director Emeritus, Nihon University Population Research Institute, who passed away in December 2006, for his long-term considerable contribution to AUICK. Then the Secretariat proposed that Dr. Lee Jay Cho, Chairman, Northwest Asia Economic Forum, would succeed him as a member of AUICK’s International Advisory Committee (IAC). Also, Dr. Ando introduced Dr. Mari Simonen, Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA, as a possible successor to Mr. Kunio Waki, Former Deputy Executive Director of UNFPA, who had been one of AUICK’s IAC members.

Attending Members:

Regular Meeting on 21 June 2007

The AUICK Executive Committee held its first regular meeting of FY2007 at the Kobe City Hall on Thursday, 21 June 2007.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Tatsuo Yada, Chairman of AUICK, reported that UNFPA has a policy to focus on urbanization issues in the next term project, and expressed great expectation concerning the experiences and achievements in this field which AUICK has accumulated since its establishment in 1989. He asked the committee members for continued assistance and advice regarding its activities.

Following the opening remarks, the Secretariat reported the achievements of FY2006. One of the major achievements in 2006 was the training activity of two workshops: The First 2006 Workshop on Population and Second 2006 Workshop on Population Ageing and Appropriate Measures for the Aged. Two best practices on environmental protection in Weihai and Chittagong, and one best practice on aged issues in Surabaya were presented at the workshops respectively. To assess the effectiveness of the workshops, the AUICK Secretariat visited Danang and Chittagong, and held monitoring meetings with past workshop participants.

Next, the Secretariat presented a financial report for FY2006. Mr. Kyoji Ueda, Auditor of AUICK, reported that he had examined all the financial reports and confirmed that there were no problems. The bills for the achievements and the financial reports for FY2006 were approved by the committee members.

Lastly, the Secretariat presented the outline of the project proposal for the years 2008-2011 to UNFPA. The major innovations of the new project are as follows:

1. The first workshop will annually focus on one of the following four topics, as advised by the IAC:

Development of urban population and environmental protection, focusing on solid waste and greening;
Population ageing and appropriate measures for the aged;
Development of urban population and water environment management, focusing on domestic wastewater; and
Reproductive health and HIV/ AIDS.

2. Nine senior city officials from AACs, who are in charge of matters related to the above, will be invited to each workshop. They will learn basic information pertaining to the above themes, and develop an action plan which they shall implement with the cooperation of their academic partners from their local universities, with whom they are supposed to jointly implement the action plans upon returning to their cities.

3. Four or five participants of the first workshop, whose action plans are feasible and highly evaluated, will be selected and invited to the second workshop, along with their academic partners. They will receive on-site training at the offices of the Kobe City Government related to their action plans, to learn more practical knowledge.

4. AUICK will set up a bank of human resources and dispatch experts to AACs upon request, so as to make good use of administrative know-how and human resources. The human resources will be recruited from individual volunteers who have retired from the city government or private enterprises (experienced engineers, nurses etc.) or members of international cooperation NGOs in Kobe City.

Since the involvement of Kobe citizens in AUICK’s activities had been recommended by the Executive Committee, the outline of the new project proposal was unanimously accepted by the committee members.

Attending Members:

Kojiro Niino (Chair)
President, Kobe Institute of Urban Research
Kiyoshi Saito
Professor, University of Hyogo
Shozo Takayose
Professor Emeritus, Konan University
Kiyoko Ikegawa
President, Kobe City College of Nursing
Shinichi Omori
Director General, International Affairs Office, International Affairs, Culture and Tourism Bureau, Kobe City Government
Isao Mizohashi
Former Director General, Civic Affairs, Culture and Tourism Bureau, Kobe City Government
Tatsuo Yada
Chairman of AUICK (Mayor of Kobe)
Hirofumi Ando
President of AUICK
Manabu Shinya
Executive Director of AUICK
<Auditor>
Kyojo Ueda
Director, International Affairs, Culture and Tourism Bureau, Kobe City Government
<Guest>
Shinyasu Hoshino
Member of AUICK Domestic Advisory Committee (Former President, National Institute for Research Advancement)
<Secretariat>
Nobuyuki Morimoto
Deputy Executive Director of AUICK

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