☆Let us Create Hopeful Future☆ Let's Create a Peaceful World where People are Safe and Conflict free 世界の人口増大に伴って、世界的な大きな課題となってきた食料問題の解決方策及び国際的な雇用創出の増大を目的として、大規模な浮体式洋上構造物上において、世界中の市民の参加による共同組織体制を創生し、地球の約70%の表面積の海洋を有効に利用して、自然再生循環系（Sustainable)の新しい産業・経済体系を創生させるプロジェクト構想を公海の海上に構築する。
例えば、国際的な教育施設も洋上構築物に併設し、洋上での大規模な農林産物・牧畜・水産物の栽培や洋上太陽光発電や洋上風力発電等のプロジェクト等を構築・発展させる。
青年達の夢と希望を世界的な規模に拡げながら、国際的な協力で、希望のある未来のために、平和で、紛争のない、安寧な世界を創って行きましょう。
ノアの箱舟を創ろう Let us Create the Super Ocean-Floating-Structures such as the Noah's ark.
ノアの箱舟を創ろう
Let us Create the Super Ocean - Floating - Structures such as the Noah's ark.
今回の掘削孔は今後予定される長期孔内計測に活用するため、孔底までケーシングパイプを設置し、8月1日（見込み）に、孔口装置に蓋を設置して作業を終了する予定です。引き続き本年度第2次研究航海として、NT2-01地点（図1）において、地震発生帯から延びる巨大分岐断層浅部をライザーレス掘削により貫通し、掘削同時検層(LWD: Logging While Drilling)により岩石層序・構造・物理特性のデータを取得します。また、来年度以降に予定している長期孔内計測の準備の一環として簡易測定器を孔内に設置し、温度および圧力の測定を開始します。
Scientists from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program use a new technology called riser drilling to penetrate nearly a mile beneath the ocean floor into the Nankai Trough earthquake zone.
ライザー掘削システム(PDF)では、ライザーと呼ばれる巨大な金属パイプのなかに深海ドリルを入れ込んでおり、これを船体から掘削地点まで伸ばし、効率よく船体と海底とを固定する。地層圧よりも比重をやや高く設定した泥水を、ドリルパイプを通して送り込み、ライザーパイプによって回収して循環させる。 コネチカット大学の地質学者で、このプロジェクトを率いる1人であるTimothy Byrne氏は、ライザー掘削システムについて、電子メールで次のように説明した。「主な利点の1つは、ドリルパイプに孔壁が崩れかかるのを、比重を高めた泥水が防ぐので、うまく制御しながらより深く掘り進むことが可能になることだ。たとえば、ほとんど垂直に近い孔や、急角度で傾斜する孔を掘削することが可能だ」 さらに、ライザーの使用によって、柱状地質試料(コア)や掘り屑(カッティングス)、小さな岩のかけらなどを掘削しながら集めて、船に回収することも可能になる。 Riser drilling of Nankai Trough earthquake zone
2009/07/30 にアップロード
Scientists from the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program use a new technology called riser drilling to penetrate nearly a mile beneath the ocean floor into the Nankai Trough earthquake zone.
The film of the "renewables –Made in Germany" initiative of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy shows the various ways of generating renewable energy and the current related technologies, the comprehensive range of services and the collective expertise of German companies. The main focus is on the transferability of German technologies and the specific ways of applying them. If you are interested in watching the Spanish, French or Arabic version please switch to the correspondent film.
研究リーダーの Daniel Nocera准教授によれば、このデバイスは、地球上に豊富に存在し安価に手に入るシリコン、ニッケル、コバルトを材料としており、普通の水があれば動作することが特徴。水の電気分解に太陽光を利用する試みはこれまでにもありましたが、それらは腐食性溶液やプラチナなどの高価な希少資源を必要とするものだったといいます。
An "artificial leaf" made by Daniel Nocera and his team, using a silicon solar cell with novel catalyst materials bonded to its two sides, is shown in a container of water with light (simulating sunlight) shining on it. The light generates a flow of electricity that causes the water molecules, with the help of the catalysts, to split into oxygen and hydrogen, which bubble up from the two surfaces.
Solar cell bonded to recently developed catalyst can harness the sun, splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen.
David L. Chandler, MIT News Office September 30, 2011
Researchers led by MIT professor Daniel Nocera have produced something they’re calling an “artificial leaf”: Like living leaves, the device can turn the energy of sunlight directly into a chemical fuel that can be stored and used later as an energy source.
The artificial leaf — a silicon solar cell with different catalytic materials bonded onto its two sides — needs no external wires or control circuits to operate. Simply placed in a container of water and exposed to sunlight, it quickly begins to generate streams of bubbles: oxygen bubbles from one side and hydrogen bubbles from the other. If placed in a container that has a barrier to separate the two sides, the two streams of bubbles can be collected and stored, and used later to deliver power: for example, by feeding them into a fuel cell that combines them once again into water while delivering an electric current.
The creation of the device is described in a paper published Sept. 30 in the journal Science. Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Energy and professor of chemistry at MIT, is the senior author; the paper was co-authored by his former student Steven Reece PhD ’07 (who now works at Sun Catalytix, a company started by Nocera to commercialize his solar-energy inventions), along with five other researchers from Sun Catalytix and MIT.
The device, Nocera explains, is made entirely of earth-abundant, inexpensive materials — mostly silicon, cobalt and nickel — and works in ordinary water. Other attempts to produce devices that could use sunlight to split water have relied on corrosive solutions or on relatively rare and expensive materials such as platinum.
The artificial leaf is a thin sheet of semiconducting silicon — the material most solar cells are made of — which turns the energy of sunlight into a flow of wireless electricity within the sheet. Bound onto the silicon is a layer of a cobalt-based catalyst, which releases oxygen, a material whose potential for generating fuel from sunlight was discovered by Nocera and his co-authors in 2008. The other side of the silicon sheet is coated with a layer of a nickel-molybdenum-zinc alloy, which releases hydrogen from the water molecules.
The 'Artificial Leaf'
An 'artificial leaf' made by Daniel Nocera and his team, using a silicon solar cell with novel catalyst materials bonded to its two sides, is shown in a container of water with light (simulating sunlight) shining on it. The light generates a flow of electricity that causes the water molecules, with the help of the catalysts, to split into oxygen and hydrogen, which bubble up from the two surfaces.Video courtesy of the Nocera Lab/Sun Catalytix
Getting clean water for drinking and agriculture to a burgeoning population is one of the most pressing challenges of this century. A natural place to turn to is the world’s oceans, but desalinating seawater has so far proven to be costly and energy-intensive.
Engineers at MIT have come up with a new desalination system that uses a shockwave to get the salt out of seawater. It could be a practical and energy-efficient method for desalination; water purification in remote locations and emergencies; and for cleaning brackish wastewater generated from hydraulic fracturing, the researchers say.
The most common desalination method involves boiling seawater, which takes a lot of energy. A slightly less energy-intensive method is reverse osmosis, in which seawater is pushed through a thick membrane that blocks sodium and chloride ions and lets fresh water through. But reverse osmosis is limited by the rate at which water molecules pass through the membrane. Plus, you still need a substantial amount of energy to force water through the membrane.
So Martin Bazant, a professor of chemical engineering and mathematics at MIT have turned to a process called shock electrodialysis that doesn’t require membranes and uses very little energy.
In the process, water flows through a charged porous material made of tiny glass particles that are sintered together. When a small electric current is applied across the porous glass, the salt ions accumulate on one side of the flow, creating an ion-rich side and an ion-deficient side. When the current is increased to a certain point, the charged surfaces of the porous media generate a shockwave that sharply divides the flowing water into two streams, one with fresh water and the other salty. The streams are simply physically separated at the center of the flow.
The generation of a shockwave in salt water was discovered a few years ago by researchers at Stanford University. But Bazant and his team have for the first time used it in a prototype electrodialysis system, which they reported on November 3 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Their prototype system can remove over 99% of various salts from solutions and recover up to 79% of the water. It can also remove contaminants like dirt and bacteria.
The system should be practical to scale up since it uses a simple setup and cheap materials. The team is now working on a larger prototype system.
In a MIT press release, Maarten Biesheuvel, a principal scientist at the Netherlands Water Technology Institute who was not involved in this research, said that the new work
“opens up a whole range of new possibilities for water desalination, both for seawater and brackish water resources, such as groundwater. It will be interesting to see whether the upscaling of this technology, from a single cell to a stack of thousands of cells, can be achieved without undue problems.”
“I think there’s going to be real opportunities for this idea,” Nocera says. “You can’t get more portable — you don’t need wires, it’s lightweight,” and it doesn’t require much in the way of additional equipment, other than a way of catching and storing the gases that bubble off. “You just drop it in a glass of water, and it starts splitting it,” he says.
Now that the “leaf” has been demonstrated, Nocera suggests one possible further development: tiny particles made of these materials that can split water molecules when placed in sunlight — making them more like photosynthetic algae than leaves. The advantage of that, he says, is that the small particles would have much more surface area exposed to sunlight and the water, allowing them to harness the sun’s energy more efficiently. (On the other hand, engineering a system to separate and collect the two gases would be more complicated in such a setup.)
The new device is not yet ready for commercial production, since systems to collect, store and use the gases remain to be developed. “It’s a step,” Nocera says. “It’s heading in the right direction.”
Ultimately, he sees a future in which individual homes could be equipped with solar-collection systems based on this principle: Panels on the roof could use sunlight to produce hydrogen and oxygen that would be stored in tanks, and then fed to a fuel cell whenever electricity is needed. Such systems, Nocera hopes, could be made simple and inexpensive enough so that they could be widely adopted throughout the world, including many areas that do not presently have access to reliable sources of electricity.
Professor James Barber, a biochemist from Imperial College London who was not involved in this research, says Nocera’s 2008 finding of the cobalt-based catalyst was a “major discovery,” and these latest findings “are equally as important, since now the water-splitting reaction is powered entirely by visible light using tightly coupled systems comparable with that used in natural photosynthesis. This is a major achievement, which is one more step toward developing cheap and robust technology to harvest solar energy as chemical fuel.”
Barber cautions that “there will be much work required to optimize the system, particularly in relation to the basic problem of efficiently using protons generated from the water-splitting reaction for hydrogen production.” But, he says, “there is no doubt that their achievement is a major breakthrough which will have a significant impact on the work of others dedicated to constructing light-driven catalytic systems to produce hydrogen and other solar fuels from water. This technology will advance side by side with new initiatives to improve and lower the cost of photovoltaics.”
Nocera’s ongoing research with the artificial leaf is directed toward “driving costs lower and lower,” he says, and looking at ways of improving the system’s efficiency. At present, the leaf can redirect about 2.5 percent of the energy of sunlight into hydrogen production in its wireless form; a variation using wires to connect the catalysts to the solar cell rather than bonding them together has attained 4.7 percent efficiency. (Typical commercial solar cells today have efficiencies of more than 10 percent). One question Nocera and his colleagues will be addressing is which of these configurations will be more efficient and cost-effective in the long run.
Another line of research is to explore the use of photovoltaic (solar cell) materials other than silicon — such as iron oxide, which might be even cheaper to produce. “It’s all about providing options for how you go about this,” Nocera says.
Address by H.E. Mr. Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, at the Opening Session of the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI) Address by H.E. Mr. Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan,
at the Opening Session of the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development
(TICAD VI)
(Saturday, August 27, 2016)
(Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC), Nairobi, Kenya)
Your Excellencies, Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and gentlemen,
I say hello to you all.
At long last, and exactly as promised, TICAD has come to Africa!
With 23 years behind us, TICAD is now on African soil, opening a new chapter in the relationship between Japan and African countries.
Throughout the continent, I cannot but think that we are witnessing a “quantum leap.”
To settle your financial transactions all you need is your phone. That is a service on the forefront of "fintech."
Take a look, also, at the ID card that is spreading in many countries. With this, you can get social security payments directly.
Today, Africa has leapfrogged over legacy technologies and aims at cutting-edge quality.
It is little wonder that an increasing number of young people from Japan find Africa intriguing and want to be a part of it.
Take, for example, “AfricaScan.”
It is a company launched in Nairobi by some young people who happened to get to know each other -- a Japanese woman who had worked in Senegal as a member of the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers, or “JOCV,” a Japanese man who had obtained his MBA at Harvard Business School, and a man who grew up in Kenya.
Visit one of the retail shops they run, known as "Blue Spoon Kiosks," you will see there is an innovative service offered free of charge. You can have your blood pressure checked.
Ms. Kasumi Sawada, if you are here, could you perhaps stand up? Ladies and gentlemen, this is the young, former JOCV, Japanese entrepreneur, who is now running AfricaScan.
This continent has fostered a large number of JOCVs. And this same continent has now become the stage for young Japanese entrepreneurs such as her to pursue their dreams. Thank you so much, Ms. Sawada. Please take your seat.
Africa is now off and running, aiming at long-range goals, aspiring to be a certain kind of continent with certain kinds of countries in 2063.
Agenda 2063 -- the grandness of this concept, to the best of my knowledge, is simply unparalleled.
However, the enormous continent of Africa has given no permanent member to the United Nations Security Council. Agenda 2063 states clearly that by 2023, it will rectify this situation. Please accept my complete support on this point.
You in Africa have a right as a matter of course to demand that the international community better reflect your views. Africa should send a permanent member to the United Nations Security Council by 2023 at the very latest.
Reform of the United Nations Security Council is truly a goal that Japan and Africa hold in common. I call on everyone here to walk together towards achieving it. Can I have your approval of that?
Over the recent past, Africa has not been free from tragedy.
Ebola virus disease claimed over 10,000 lives.
Some countries are troubled by the plunge in the price of commodities, while in other nations, peace has been shattered.
I should nonetheless ask: Will Africa simply stop moving forward?
To the vast landmass of Africa blessed by the sunshine no "-ism" is more unsuited than pessimism. Am I not right?
Whatever problems there are in Africa, they are quite simply there to be solved, period.
And Japan is a country that ardently hopes to resolve the issues facing Africa together with Africa, and will not let up in its efforts.
We want to indulge in as much vitality and self-confidence as we can from you, when you are moving forward with your eyes firmly fixed on the future. That is why some 70 Japanese companies have sent executives here to TICAD. The Chairman of Keidanren, Mr. Sadayuki Sakakibara, also is with us. It is almost as if the entire Who’s Who in the Japanese business world has come to join us here at TICAD.
We have a feeling in our gut that in Africa, where possibilities abound, Japan can grow vigorously. Japanese companies can grow vigorously.
It is Japanese companies that are committed to quality. Theirs is a manufacturing philosophy that holds each individual worker in high esteem.
Our hunch is that the time has come to make the best of Japan's capabilities, Japanese companies' capabilities, for the advancement of Africa, where you seek nothing but quality in your socio-economic development. We must not let a good opportunity slip away. I declare to you that we will launch the “Japan-Africa Public and Private Economic Forum” as a permanent forum.
Members of the Japanese Cabinet, together with top executives from Japan’s major business associations and corporations, will visit Africa once every three years. They will meet with their African counterparts to pinpoint issues from the vantage point of businesses, identifying what needs to be done to enable Japanese and African companies to do more business together going forward. This makes it a forum bringing the power of the public and private sectors together to forge solutions.
Kenya and Japan will sign an investment agreement during my visit here. We will also be initiating negotiations on a tax treaty.
This will be followed by consultations on investment agreements to be launched with Cote d'Ivoire. Many more are expected in the future.
This year as TICAD takes place here on African soil, right now as a growing number of young people and companies from Japan pin their expectations on the future of Africa, the partnership connecting Japan and Africa has entered, really, a mutually beneficial stage.
Japan's pledges I am introducing now will also benefit both of us, Africa and Japan.
The pledges my government announced three years ago in Yokohama still have two years remaining before they fall due, and yet 67 percent of them have already been carried out.
Today’s new pledges enhance and further expand upon those launched three years ago. The motif here is “Quality and Empowerment,” which reflects the outcomes of the G7 Summit Japan hosted this year in a place called Ise-Shima.
Last year we saw agreement reached on the SDGs, and at COP21 succeeded in making progress. It was projected that TICAD VI would be the first major international conference on African development following those.
Right in the interim was it planned to hold the G7 Summit. "I must use it as an opportunity to help advance Africa." That was what was in my mind. And hence brought forth was the motif "Quality and Empowerment."
Under the same motif, the G7 Summit also emphasized that the key to empowering Africa rests in the provision of health care. We made a compilation of the actions underway in this field in recent years and set forth a vision that puts the future direction into sharp focus. I will return to this point later on in my remarks.
Allow me here to add to the word “Africa” the three modifiers of “quality,” “resilient” and “stable.” That is precisely the form of Africa that Japan will aim for, working together with you.
A “quality Africa” will be built through the three elements of infrastructure, human resources, and “kaizen.”
Infrastructure includes electrical power and also urban transport systems. For developing resources, and also for increasing the connectivity of the whole of Africa, it will be necessary to develop roads and ports.
This must be nothing other than “quality infrastructure.” At the G7 Summit we were united in our determination in this regard. This point was detailed in the “G7 Ise-Shima Principles for Promoting Quality Infrastructure Investment.”
Taking the initiative, Japan will appropriate approximately 10 billion US dollars to Africa over the next 3 years for building infrastructure. A portion of this will be executed through cooperation with the African Development Bank.
Electric generating capacity is expected to increase by 2000 megawatts. What is promising is geothermal power generation that can make use of Japanese technologies. Generating capacity from geothermal sources should provide enough to cover the demand from 3 million households in 2022.
Next, human resources.
Under the “ABE Initiative,” the number of future executives from Africa who have studied in Japan will soon reach a thousand.
Now we will introduce a new pillar to the ABE Initiative.
We want to foster future foremen and plant managers -- leaders at worksites. Over three years, the Initiative will foster roughly 1500 people.
Japan has a higher education system called “KOUSEN” specializing in fostering engineers. We will bring this system to Africa.
By 2018, we wish to have raised a total of 30 thousand people to be the human resources supporting the foundations of industry. Our aim is to cultivate these people by combining the forces of both Japan and Africa.
The final element is “kaizen,” which you are already familiar with.
“Kaizen” enhances productivity and decreases defective goods through the initiatives and ingenuity of the people working on the production line. The common philosophy running through this is trust in each individual worker. It is a philosophy and a method born in Japan.
Japan will cooperate with NEPAD to spread “kaizen” all throughout Africa.
We will aim to increase by 30 percent the productivity of factories where “kaizen” is introduced.
This is not impossible. In Ethiopia, there is a shoe manufacturer called Peacock Shoe that received training in “kaizen” 17 times, resulting in daily production jumping from 500 pairs of shoes a day to 800 -- a 60 percent increase.
A “resilient Africa” is one that does not capitulate to illness.
When a public health emergency like Ebola occurs, two things matter: to have preparedness in the local areas, and for the entire international community to confront it.
Japan will foster experts and policy professionals that will combat infectious diseases, for a total of 20 thousand people over 3 years.
At the G7 Summit, Japan set forth a contribution plan for the field of health. More than 500 million US dollars of that will be channeled through organizations such as the Global Fund and the World Bank’s Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) in order to strengthen Africa’s health systems and counter infectious diseases. In doing so, we expect to save the lives of more than 300 thousand people.
Of course, promoting Universal Health Coverage, or “UHC,” is the foundation for everything.
In order to press ahead with UHC, we will select countries to serve as models and provide assistance intensively to those model countries, and then, using them as a doorway to further efforts, we will work to have UHC expand elsewhere. The goal will be to increase the population benefiting from fundamental health services by 2 million people over the next 3 years. We will of course work together with international organizations in promoting UHC.
I will also mention that we will launch the Initiative for Food and Nutrition Security in Africa, or “IFNA.” With nutrition being the very foundation of health, this is a measure we will advance jointly with NEPAD.
A “stable Africa” is one that goes all out to bring about peace and build the foundations for security.
Through the cooperation of the Government of Kenya, members of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces are currently in the outskirts of Nairobi training military engineering personnel on how to operate earth movers.
Once a conflict ends and nation building begins, progress cannot be made unless people are able to operate heavy machinery. The members of Japan’s Self-Defense Forces are working hard, fully aware that their activities are to boost the capacities of United Nations peacekeeping operations.
The very first time Japan’s Self-Defense Forces were engaged in PKO in Africa was in Mozambique in 1993, the same year in which the TICAD process started.
It is the trust that the SDFs have built up since then that has made the job of human resource development possible. For Japan, which bears the flag of “Proactive Contribution to Peace based on the principle of international cooperation,” this is a very gratifying development.
A “stable Africa” is also one in which young people have both self-efficacy and self-esteem.
In order to cultivate self-confidence and dreams in young people, Japan would like to provide vocational training to 50 thousand people over the next 3 years.
To bring about a quality, resilient, and stable Africa, Japan will empower, in other words, implement human resource development for 10 million people over three years beginning in 2016.
When combined with investment from the private sector, I expect the total will amount to 30 billion US dollars. This is an investment that has faith in Africa’s future, an investment for both Japan and Africa to grow together.
In the 23 years since the TICAD process began, the total amount of ODA to Africa that Japan has carried out amounts to 47 billion US dollars. Joined by Japan's private sector, the Africa-Japan relationship is poised to aim at an even higher peak.
When you cross the seas of Asia and the Indian Ocean and come to Nairobi, you then understand very well that what connects Asia and Africa is the sea lanes.
What will give stability and prosperity to the world is none other than the enormous liveliness brought forth through the union of two free and open oceans and two continents.
Japan bears the responsibility of fostering the confluence of the Pacific and Indian Oceans and of Asia and Africa into a place that values freedom, the rule of law, and the market economy, free from force or coercion, and making it prosperous.
Japan wants to work together with you in Africa in order to make the seas that connect the two continents into peaceful seas that are governed by the rule of law. That is what we wish to do with you.
The winds that traverse the ocean turn our eyes to the future.
The supply chain is already building something quite like an enormous bridge between Asia and Africa, providing industrial wisdom. The population in Asia living in democracies is more numerous than that of any other region on earth.
Asia has enjoyed growth on the basis of the democracy, rule of law, and market economy that has taken root there. It is my wish that the self-confidence and sense of responsibility spawned there as a result come to envelop the entirety of Africa together with the gentle winds that blow here.
Let us make this stretch that is from Asia to Africa a main artery for growth and prosperity. Let us advance together, Africa and Japan, sharing a common vision.
The future abounds with blazes of bright colors. We are poised to hear the intense yet refreshing beat of the drums. My African friends, let us continue to walk forward together, believing in the potential that the future holds.
Kenyatta, Dlamini-Zuma address opening ceremony at TICAD
2016/08/27 に公開 The two-day Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development also known as TICAD, is currently underway in the Kenyan Capital of Nairobi. The summit aims at bringing together Japan and African states to fight common challenges. At the opening ceremony, African Union Chairperson, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma outlined other aims of the summit. Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta touched on the issue of terrorism For more news, visit: http://www.sabc.co.za/news
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President Zuma expected to arrive in Kenya for TICAD
President Jacob Zuma is expected to arrive in Kenya tomorrow for the two day Tokyo International Conference on African Development, which will be held in the Kenyan capital over the weekend.
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe as well as 35 African Heads of State have confirmed their attendance. TICAD is jointly organized by Japan, the African Union, World Bank and the United Nations to bring together development partners to discuss Africa's growth and development.
Nkosazana Clarice Dlamini-Zuma (born 27 January 1949) is a South African politician and anti-apartheid activist. She was South Africa's Minister of Health from 1994 to 1999, under President Nelson Mandela, then Minister of Foreign Affairs from 17 June 1999 to 10 May 2009, under presidents Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe. She was moved to the position of Minister of Home Affairs in the Cabinet of President Jacob Zuma, her ex-husband, on 10 May 2009 a capacity in which she served until her resignation on 2 October 2012.
On 15 July 2012, Dlamini-Zuma was elected by the African Union Commission as its chairperson, making her the first woman to lead the organisation (including its predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity).[1] She took office on 15 October 2012. She has been tipped as a future leader of the African National Congress.[2]
Early years
Dlamini-Zuma, a Zulu, was born in Natal, the eldest of eight children. She completed high school at the Amanzimtoti Training College in 1967.[3] In 1971, she started her studies in Zoology and Botany at the University of Zululand, from where she obtained a Bachelor's Degree in Science (BSc). She subsequently started her medical studies at the University of Natal, completing medical studies, however, at the University of Bristol in the UK in 1978.[4]
ANC
During her studies in the early 1970s, Dlamini-Zuma became an active underground member of South African Students Organisation (Student Wing For BCM as Influenced by Steve Biko) and was elected as its deputy president in 1976.
During the same year Dlamini-Zuma fled into exile; she completed her medical studies at the University of Bristol in 1978. She subsequently worked as a doctor at the Mbabane Government Hospital in Swaziland, where she met her future husband, current ANC party president Jacob Zuma. In 1985 she returned to the United Kingdom to complete a diploma in tropical child health from Liverpool University's School of Tropical Medicine. After receiving her diploma, she worked for the ANC Regional Health Committee before accepting the position of director of the Health and Refugee Trust, a British non-governmental organisation.
Government
Health Department
During the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) negotiations in 1992, Dlamini-Zuma was part of the Gender Advisory Committee. After the first all-inclusive South African elections of 1994, she was appointed as Minister of Health in the cabinet of President Nelson Mandela.
During her tenure as Minister of Health she de-segregated the health system. However, an AIDS education play – Sarafina II – she commissioned was criticised by the Public Protector for poor financial controls and poor commissioning procedures. Dlamini-Zuma agreed to shelve the play following the Public Protector's report.[5][6][7] Dlamini-Zuma was also criticised for supporting the anti-AIDS drug, Virodene, which was cheaper than other drugs but rejected by the scientific community as ineffective.[7][8]
Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma divorced from Jacob Zuma in 1998.[7]
Dlamini-Zuma brought forward the Tobacco Products Control Bill in 1999, which made it illegal for anyone to smoke in public places.
Following the 1999 general election, Nelson Mandela retired as President and was replaced by Thabo Mbeki. Mbeki appointed Dlamini-Zuma as Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Foreign Affairs Department
She was offered the Deputy Presidency of South Africa by Thabo Mbeki after he fired Jacob Zuma, but declined it after talking to her children. The deputy presidency position was then offered to and accepted by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.[9]
She was suggested as a possible ANC candidate for the Presidency in the 2009 election and for the leadership of the party. On 15 November 2007, she said that she would be willing to accept a nomination by the ANC,[10][11] although her spokesman said the next day that she had not entered the succession debate in the ANC.[12]
Dlamini-Zuma was nominated for the party's deputy presidency by four provinces aligned to President Thabo Mbeki, while the five provinces backing her ex-husband ANC deputy president Jacob Zuma preferred her as the national chairperson. [9] She was elected to the ANC's 80-member National Executive Committee in December 2007 in 35th place, with 1,885 votes.[13]
On 22 September 2008, Dlamini-Zuma resigned along with 10 other ministers of the South African cabinet, the deputy president and the president. After Thabo Mbeki was ousted by the African National Congress, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma was abroad and said to be filling her papers of resigning but instead was retained as the Foreign Minister in Kgalema Motlanthe's cabinet.
Home Affairs
In the Zuma cabinet she served as Minister of Home Affairs.
African Union
In January 2012, Dlamini-Zuma sought to become the Chairperson of the African Union Commission by running against incumbent Jean Ping. In the first election, a deadlock in the voting as a consequence of an inability to secure a two-thirds majority of the vote meant that Ping's term was extended by six months.[14]
An election on 15 July at the nineteenth session of the Assembly of the African Union,[15] however, resulted in Dlamini-Zuma being elected over Ping[16] after three rounds of voting in which she got 37 votes, or 60% in a race that was largely about Francophone states against Anglophone states, particularly in southern Africa. Prior to the vote, she also said that "I don't think the continent will be polarised. [The winner would] make sure they work with everybody, irrespective of where and who they voted for," after chairman Thomas Boni Yayi warned of a divided union with undermined global credibility.
After the vote, Ping's spokesman, Noureddine Mezni, said he "has accepted the results of the elections and wishes Madame Dlamini-Zuma the very best...he expressed his readiness to co-operate with her to work together for the unity of the continent." Other congratulatory messages came from AU chairman and Beninese President Thomas Boni Yayi who said: "Now we have the African Union chair Madame Zuma, who will preside over the destiny of this institution." South African President Jacob Zuma said that her election "means a lot for Africa...for the continent, unity and the empowerment of women," while Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said that "she's a freedom fighter, not a bureaucrat or a diplomat."[17]
In 2015 an open letter which the ONE Campaign had been collecting signatures for was addressed to her and Angela Merkel, urging them to focus on women as they serve as the head of the African Union and the G7 respectively, which will start to set the priorities in development funding before a main UN summit in September 2015 that will establish new development goals for the generation.[18]
Personal life
She married Jacob Zuma, with whom she has four children, Msholozi (born 1982), Gugulethu Zuma-Ncube(born 1985) married to one son of a Zimbabwean politician and President of MDC party Welshman Ncube, Thuli (Nokuthula Nomaqhawe) (born 1987) and Thuthu (Thuthukile Xolile Nomonde) (born 1989). They divorced in June 1998.[19]
Honours
Dlamini-Zuma has been awarded honorary Doctor of Law degrees by both the University of Natal (1995) and the University of Bristol (1996).
2016/08/27 に公開
President Uhuru Kenyatta, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and a slew of African and global leaders have officiated the grand opening of the TICAD sixth conference in Nairobi, Kenya. The African leaders, who hailed the move to host the conference in Africa for the first time, are hoping to sign multi billion deals that will benefit their respective economies.
US President Barack Obama on Sunday told Kenyans to make "tough choices" if they want to improve their lives for the better.While addressing a gathering in Nairobi, Mr Obama recalled the progress Kenya has made over the years.
The transcript for Obama’s speech to Kenyans at Kasarani
The US Embassy in Nairobi has generously provided the transcript for Obama’s speech yesterday. Please find it below.
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Hey!
AUDIENCE: Hey!
PRESIDENT OBAMA: Habari Zenu! (Applause.) Wakenya mpo? (Applause.) It is great to be back in Kenya. Thank you so much for this extraordinary welcome. I know it took a few years, but as President I try to keep my promises, and I said I was going to come, and I’m here. (Applause.)
Everybody, go ahead and have a seat. I’m going to be talking for a while. (Laughter.) Relax.
I want to thank my sister, Auma, for a wonderful introduction. I’m so glad that she could be with us here today. And it was — as she said, it was Auma who first guided me through Kenya almost 30 years ago.
To President Kenyatta, I want to thank you once again for the hospitality that you’ve shown to me — (applause) — and for our work together on this visit, and for being here today. It’s a great honor.
I am proud to be the first American President to come to Kenya — (applause) — and, of course, I’m the first Kenyan-American to be President of the United States. (Laughter and applause.) That goes without saying.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: I love you, Obama!
PRESIDENT OBAMA: I love you back. (Applause.) I do.
But, as Auma was saying, the first time I came to Kenya, things were a little different. When I arrived at Kenyatta Airport, the airline lost my bags. (Laughter.) That doesn’t happen on Air Force One. (Laughter.) They always have my luggage on Air Force One. (Laughter.) As she said, Auma picked me up in an old Volkswagon Beetle, and think the entire stay I was here it broke down four or five times. (Laughter.) We’d be on the highway, we’d have to call the juakali — he’d bring us tools. We’d be sitting there, waiting. And I slept on a cot in her apartment. Instead of eating at fancy banquets with the President, we were drinking tea and eating Ugali — (laughter) — and Sukumawiki.
So there wasn’t a lot of luxury. Sometimes the lights would go out. They still do — is that what someone said? (Laughter.) But there was something more important than luxury on that first trip, and that was a sense of being recognized, being seen. I was a young man and I was just a few years out of University. I had worked as a community organizer in low-income neighborhoods in Chicago. I was about to go to law school. And when I came here, in many ways I was a Westerner, I was an American, unfamiliar with my father and his birthplace, really disconnected from half of my heritage. And at that airport, as I was trying to find my luggage, there was a woman there who worked for the airlines, and she was helping fill out the forms, and she saw my name and she looked up and she asked if I was related to my father, who she had known. And that was the first time that my name meant something. (Applause.) And that was recognized.
And over the course of several weeks, I’d meet my brothers and aunts and uncles. I traveled to Alego, the village where my family was from. I saw the graves of my father and my grandfather. And I learned things about their lives that I could have never learned through books. And in many ways, their lives offered snapshots of Kenya’s history, but they also told us something about the future.
My grandfather, for example, he was a cook for the British. And as I went through some of his belongings when I went up-country, I found the passbook he had had to carry as a domestic servant. It listed his age and his height, his tribe, listed the number of teeth he had missing. (Laughter.) And he was referred to as a boy, even though he was a grown man, in that passbook.
And he was in the King’s African Rifles during the Second World War, and was taken to the far reaches of the British Empire — all the way to Burma. And back home after the war, he was eventually detained for a time because he was linked to a group that opposed British rule. And eventually he was released. He forged a home for himself and his family. He earned the respect of his village, lived a life of dignity — although he had a well-earned reputation for being so strict that everybody was scared of him and he became estranged from part of his family.
So that was his story. And then my father came of age as Kenyans were pursuing independence, and he was proud to be a part of that liberation generation. And next to my grandfather’s papers, I found letters that he had written to 30 American universities asking for a chance to pursue his dream and get a scholarship. And ultimately, one university gave him that chance — the University in Hawaii. And he would go on to get an education and then return home.
And here, at first he found success as an economist and worked with the government. But ultimately, he found disappointment — in part because he couldn’t reconcile the ideas that he had for his young country with the hard realities that had confronted him.
And I think sometimes about what these stories tell us, what the history and the past tell us about the future. They show the enormous barriers to progress that so many Kenyans faced just one or two generations ago. This is a young country. We were talking last night at dinner — the President’s father was the first President. We’re only a generation removed. And the daily limitations — and sometimes humiliations — of colonialism — that’s recent history. The corruption and cronyism and tribalism that sometimes confront young nations — that’s recent history.
But what these stories also tell us is an arch of progress — from foreign rule to independence; from isolation to education, and engagement with a wider world. It speaks of incredible progress. So we have to know the history of Kenya, just as we Americans have to know our American history. All people have to understand where they come from. But we also have to remember why these lessons are important.
We know a history so that we can learn from it. We learn our history because we understand the sacrifices that were made before, so that when we make sacrifices we understand we’re doing it on behalf of future generations.
There’s a proverb that says, “We have not inherited this land from our forebears, we have borrowed it from our children.” In other words, we study the past so it can guide us into the future, and inspire us to do better.
And when it comes to the people of Kenya — particularly the youth — I believe there is no limit to what you can achieve. A young, ambitious Kenyan today should not have to do what my grandfather did, and serve a foreign master. You don’t need to do what my father did, and leave your home in order to get a good education and access to opportunity. Because of Kenya’s progress, because of your potential, you can build your future right here, right now. (Applause.)
President Obama. Photo credit US Embassy https://twitter.com/USEmbassyKenya/status/625256917393371136
President Obama. Photo credit US Embassy https://twitter.com/USEmbassyKenya/status/625256917393371136
Now, like any country, Kenya is far from perfect, but it has come so far in just my lifetime. After a bitter struggle, Kenyans claimed their independence just a few years after I was born. And after decades of one party-rule, Kenya embraced a multi-party system in the 1990s, just as I was beginning my own political career in the United States.
Tragically, just under a decade ago, Kenya was nearly torn apart by violence at the same time that I was running for my first campaign for President. And I remember hearing the reports of thousands of innocent people being killed or driven from their homes. And from a distance, it seemed like the Kenya that I knew — a Kenya that was able to reach beyond ethnic and tribal lines — that it might split apart across those lines of tribe and ethnicity.
But look what happened. The people of Kenya chose not to be defined by the hatreds of the past — you chose a better history. (Applause.) The voices of ordinary people, and political leaders and civil society did not eliminate all these divisions, but you addressed the divisions and differences peacefully. And a new constitution was put in place, declaring that “every person has inherent dignity — and the right to have that dignity respected and protected.” A competitive election went forward — not without problems, but without the violence that so many had feared. In other words, Kenyans chose to stay together. You chose the path of Harambee. (Applause.)
And in part because of this political stability, Kenya’s economy is also emerging — and the entrepreneurial spirit that people rely on to survive in the streets of Kibera can now be seen in new businesses across the country. (Applause.) From the city square to the smallest villages, MPesa is changing the way people use money. New investment is making Kenya a hub for regional trade. When I came here as a U.S. senator, I pointed out that South Korea’s economy was the same as Kenya’s when I was born, and then was 40 times larger than Kenya’s. Think about that. It started at the same place — South Korea had gone here, and Kenya was here. But today, that gap has been cut in half just in the last decade. (Applause.) Which means Kenya is making progress.
And meanwhile, Kenya continues to carve out a distinct place in the community of nations: As a source of peacekeepers for places torn apart by conflict, a host for refugees driven from their homes. A leader for conservation, following the footprints of Wangari Maathai. (Applause.) Kenya is one of the places on this continent that truly observes freedom of the press, and their fearless journalists and courageous civil society members. And in the United States, we see the legacy of Kip Keino every time a Kenyan wins one of our marathons. (Applause.) And maybe the First Lady of Kenya is going to win one soon. (Laughter and applause.) I told the President he has to start running with his wife. (Laughter.) We want him to stay fit. (Laughter.)
So there’s much to be proud of — much progress to lift up. It’s a good-news story. But we also know the progress is not complete. There are still problems that shadow ordinary Kenyans every day — challenges that can deny you your livelihood, and sometimes deny you lives.
As in America — and so many countries around the globe — economic growth has not always been broadly shared. Sometimes people at the top do very well, but ordinary people still struggle. Today, a young child in Nyanza Province is four times more likely to die than a child in Central Province — even though they are equal in dignity and the eyes of God. That’s a gap that has to be closed. (Applause.) A girl in Rift Valley is far less likely to attend secondary school than a girl in Nairobi. That’s a gap that has to be closed. (Applause.) Across the country, one study shows corruption costs Kenyans 250,000 jobs every year — because every shilling that’s paid as a bribe could be put into the pocket of somebody who’s actually doing an honest day’s work. (Applause.)
And despite the hard-earned political progress that I spoke of, those political gains still have to be protected. New laws and restrictions could close off the space where civil society gives individual citizens a voice and holds leaders accountable. Old tribal divisions and ethnic divisions can still be stirred up. I want to be very clear here — a politics that’s based solely on tribe and ethnicity is a politics that’s doomed to tear a country apart. (Applause.) It is a failure — a failure of imagination.
Of course, here, in Kenya, we also know the specter of terrorism has touched far too many lives. And we remember the Americans and Kenyans who died side by side in the attack on our embassy in the ‘90s. We remember the innocent Kenyans who were taken from us at Westgate Mall. We weep for the nearly 150 people slaughtered at Garissa — including so many students who had such a bright future before them. We honor the memory of so many other innocent Kenyans whose lives have been lost in this struggle.
So Kenya is at a crossroads — a moment filled with peril, but also enormous promise. And with the rest of my time here today, I’d like to talk about how you can seize the moment, how you can make sure we leave behind a world that’s better — a world that we borrowed from our children.
When I first came to sub-Saharan Africa as President, I made clear my strong belief that the future of Africa is up to Africans. (Applause.) For too long, I think that many looked to the outside for salvation and focused on somebody else being at fault for the problems of the continent. And as my sister said, ultimately we are each responsible for our own destiny. And I’m here as President of a country that sees Kenya as an important partner. (Applause.) I’m here as a friend who wants Kenya to succeed.
And the pillars of that success are clear: Strong democratic governance; development that provides opportunity for all people and not just some; a sense of national identity that rejects conflict for a future of peace and reconciliation.
And today, we can see that future for Kenya on the horizon. But tough choices are going to have to be made in order to arrive at that destination. In the United States, I always say that what makes America exceptional is not the fact that we’re perfect, it’s the fact that we struggle to improve. We’re self-critical. We work to live up to our highest values and ideals, knowing that we’re not always going to achieve them perfectly, but we keep on trying to perfect our union.
And what’s true for America is also true for Kenya. You can’t be complacent and accept the world just as it is. You have to imagine what the world might be and then push and work toward that future. Progress requires that you honestly confront the dark corners of our own past; extend rights and opportunities to more of your citizens; see the differences and diversity of this country as a strength, just as we in America try to see the diversity of our country as a strength and not a weakness. So you can choose the path to progress, but it requires making some important choices.
First and foremost, it means continuing down the path of a strong, more inclusive, more accountable and transparent democracy. (Applause.)
Democracy begins with a peacefully-elected government. It begins with elections. But it doesn’t stop with elections. (Applause.) So your constitution offers a road map to governance that’s more responsive to the people — through protections against unchecked power, more power in the hands of local communities. For this system to succeed, there also has to be space for citizens to exercise their rights.
And we saw the strength of Kenya’s civil society in the last election, when groups collected reports of incitement so that violence could be stopped before it spun out of control. And the ability of citizens to organize and advocate for change — that’s the oxygen upon which democracy depends. Democracy is sometimes messy, and for leaders, sometimes it’s frustrating. Democracy means that somebody is always complaining about something. (Laughter.) Nobody is ever happy in a democracy about their government. If you make one person happy, somebody else is unhappy. Then sometimes somebody who you made happy, later on, now they’re not happy. (Laughter.) They say, what have you done for me lately? (Laughter.) But that’s the nature of democracy. That’s why it works, is because it’s constantly challenging leaders to up their game and to do better.
And such civic participation and freedom is also essential for rooting out the cancer of corruption. Now, I want to be clear. Corruption is not unique to Kenya. (Laughter.) I mean, I want everybody to understand that there’s no country that’s completely free of corruption. Certainly here in the African continent there are many countries that deal with this problem. And I want to assure you I speak about it wherever I go, not just here in Kenya. So I don’t want everybody to get too sensitive. (Laughter.)
But the fact is, too often, here in Kenya — as is true in other places — corruption is tolerated because that’s how things have always been done. People just think that that is sort of the normal state of affairs. And there was a time in the United States where that was true, too. My hometown of Chicago was infamous for Al Capone and the Mob and organized crime corrupting law enforcement. But what happened was that over time people got fed up, and leaders stood up and they said, we’re not going to play that game anymore. (Applause.) And you changed a culture and you changed habits.
Here in Kenya, it’s time to change habits, and decisively break that cycle. Because corruption holds back every aspect of economic and civil life. It’s an anchor that weighs you down and prevents you from achieving what you could. If you need to pay a bribe and hire somebody’s brother — who’s not very good and doesn’t come to work — in order to start a business, well, that’s going to create less jobs for everybody. If electricity is going to one neighborhood because they’re well-connected, and not another neighborhood, that’s going to limit development of the country as a whole. (Applause.) If someone in public office is taking a cut that they don’t deserve, that’s taking away from those who are paying their fair share.
So this is not just about changing one law — although it’s important to have laws on the books that are actually being enforced. It’s important that not only low-level corruption is punished, but folks at the top, if they are taking from the people, that has to be addressed as well. (Applause.) But it’s not something that is just fixed by laws, or that any one person can fix. It requires a commitment by the entire nation — leaders and citizens — to change habits and to change culture. (Applause.)
Tough laws need to be on the books. And the good news is, your government is taking some important steps in the right direction. People who break the law and violate the public trust need to be prosecuted. NGOs have to be allowed to operate who shine a spotlight on what needs to change. And ordinary people have to stand up and say, enough is enough. (Applause.) It’s time for a better future.
And as you take these steps, I promise that America will continue to be your partner in supporting investments in strong, democratic institutions. (Applause.)
Now, we’re also going to work with you to pursue the second pillar of progress, and that is development that extends economic opportunity and dignity for all of Kenya’s people.
America partners with Kenya in areas where you’re making enormous progress, and we focus on what Kenyans can do for themselves and building capacity; on entrepreneurship, where Kenya is becoming an engine for innovation; on access to power, where Kenya is developing clean energy that can reach more people; on the important issue of climate change, where Kenya’s recent goal to reduce its emissions has put it in the position of being a leader on the continent; on food security, where Kenyan crops are producing more to meet the demands of your people and a global market; and on health, where Kenya has struck huge blows against HIV/AIDS and other diseases, while building up the capacity to provide better care in your communities.
America is also partnering with you on an issue that’s fundamental to Kenya’s future: We are investing in youth. (Applause.) We are investing in the young people of Kenya and the young people of this continent. Robert F. Kennedy once said, “It is a revolutionary world that we live in,” and “it is the young people who must take the lead.” (Applause.) It’s the young people who must take the lead.
So through our Young African Leaders Initiative — (applause) — we are empowering and connecting young people from across the continent who are filled with energy and optimism and idealism, and are going to take Africa to new heights. (Applause.) And these young people, they’re not weighted down by the old ways. They’re creating a new path. And these are the elements for success in this 21st century.
To continue down this path of progress, it will be vital for Kenya to recognize that no country can achieve its full potential unless it draws on the talents of all its people — and that must include the half of Kenyans — maybe a little more than half –who are women and girls. (Applause.) Now, I’m going to spend a little time on this just for a second. Every country and every culture has traditions that are unique and help make that country what it is. But just because something is a part of your past doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t mean that it defines your future.
Look at us in the United States. Recently, we’ve been having a debate about the Confederate flag. Some of you may be familiar with this. This was a symbol for those states who fought against the Union to preserve slavery. Now, as a historical artifact, it’s important. But some have argued that it’s just a symbol of heritage that should fly in public spaces. The fact is it was a flag that flew over an army that fought to maintain a system of slavery and racial subjugation. So we should understand our history, but we should also recognize that it sends a bad message to those who were liberated from slavery and oppression.
And in part because of an unspeakable tragedy that took place recently, where a young man who was a fan of the Confederate flag and racial superiority shot helpless people in a church, more and more Americans of all races are realizing now that that flag should come down. (Applause.) Just because something is a tradition doesn’t make it right.
Well, so around the world, there is a tradition of repressing women and treating them differently, and not giving them the same opportunities, and husbands beating their wives, and children not being sent to school. Those are traditions. Treating women and girls as second-class citizens, those are bad traditions. They need to change. (Applause.) They’re holding you back.
Treating women as second-class citizens is a bad tradition. It holds you back. (Applause.) There’s no excuse for sexual assault or domestic violence. There’s no reason that young girls should suffer genital mutilation. There’s no place in civilized society for the early or forced marriage of children. These traditions may date back centuries; they have no place in the 21st century. (Applause.)
These are issues of right and wrong — in any culture. But they’re also issues of success and failure. Any nation that fails to educate its girls or employ its women and allowing them to maximize their potential is doomed to fall behind in a global economy. (Applause.)
You know, we’re in a sports center. Imagine if you have a team and you don’t let half of the team play. (Laughter.) That’s stupid. (Laughter and applause.) That makes no sense. And the evidence shows that communities that give their daughters the same opportunities as their sons, they are more peaceful, they are more prosperous, they develop faster, they are more likely to succeed. (Applause.) That’s true in America. That’s true here in Kenya. It doesn’t matter.
And that’s why one of the most successful development policies you can pursue is giving girls and education, and removing the obstacles that stand between them and their dreams. And by the way, if you educate girls — they grow up to be moms — and they, because they’re educated, are more likely to produce educated children. (Applause.) So Kenya will not succeed if it treats women and girls as second-class citizens. I want to be very clear about that. (Applause.)
Now, this leads me to the third pillar of progress, and that’s choosing a future of peace and reconciliation.
There are real threats out there. President Kenyatta and I spent a lot of time discussing the serious threat from al-Shabaab that Kenya faces. The United States faces similar threats of terrorism. We are grateful for the sacrifices made by Kenyans on the front lines as part of AMISOM. (Applause.) We’re proud of the efforts that we’re making to strengthen Kenya’s capabilities through our new Security Governance Initiative. We’re going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you in this fight against terrorism for as long as it takes. (Applause.)
But, as I mentioned yesterday, it is important to remember that violent extremists want us to turn against one another. That’s what terrorists typically try to exploit. They know that they are a small minority; they know that they can’t win conventionally. So what they try to do is target societies where they can exploit divisions. That’s what happens in Iraq. That’s what happens around the world. That’s what happened in Northern Ireland. Terrorists who try to sow chaos, they must be met with force and they must also be met, though, with a forceful commitment to uphold the rule of law, and respect for human rights, and to treat everybody who’s peaceful and law-abiding fairly and equally. (Applause.)
Extremists who prey on distrust must be defeated by communities who stand together and stand for something different. And the most important example here is, is that the United States and Kenya both have Muslim minorities, but those minorities make enormous contributions to our countries. These are our brothers, they are our sisters. (Applause.) And so in both our countries, we have to reject calls that allow us to be divided.
This is true for any diverse society. And Kenya is rich with diversity — with many dozens of tribes and ethnicities, and languages and religious groups. And time and again, just as we’ve seen the dangers of religious or ethnic violence, we’ve seen that Kenya is stronger when Kenyans stand united — with a sense of national identity. That was the case on December 12, 1963, when cities and villages across this country celebrated the birth of a nation. It was true in 2010, when Kenya replaced the anarchy of ethnic violence with the order of a new constitution. (Applause.)
So we can all appreciate our own identities, our bloodlines, our beliefs, our backgrounds — that tapestry is what makes us who we are. But the history of Africa — which is both the cradle of human progress and a crucible of conflict — shows us that when define ourselves narrowly, in opposition to somebody just because they’re of a different tribe, or race, or religion — and we ignore who is a good person or a bad person, are they working hard or not, are they honest or not, are they peaceful or violent — when we start making distinctions solely based on status and not what people do, then we’re taking the wrong path and we inevitably suffer in the end. (Applause.)
This is why Martin Luther King called on people to be judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character. (Applause.) And in the same way, people should not be judged by their last name, or their religious faith, but by their content of their character and how they behave. Are they good citizens? Are they good people?
In the United States, we embrace the motto: E Pluribus Unum. In Latin, that means, out of many, one. In Kenya, Harambee — we are in this together. Whatever the challenge, you will be stronger if you face it not as Christians or Muslims, Masai, Kikuyu, Luo, any other tribe — but as Kenyans. And ultimately, that unity is the source of strength that will empower you to seize this moment of promise. That’s what will help you root out corruption. (Applause.) That’s what will strengthen democratic institutions. That’s what will help you combat inequality. That’s what will help you extend opportunity, and educate youth, and face down threats, and embrace reconciliation.
So I want to say particularly to the young people here today, Kenya is on the move. Africa is on the move. You are poised to play a bigger role in this world — (applause) — as the shadows of the past are replaced by the light that you offer an increasingly interconnected world. And in the light of this new day, we have to learn to see ourselves in one another. We have to see that we are connected, our fates are bound together. Because, in the end, we’re all part of one tribe — the human tribe. (Applause.) And no matter who we are, or where we come from, or what we look like, or who we love, or what God we worship, we’re connected. Our fates are bound up with one another.
Kenya holds within it all that diversity. And with diversity, sometimes comes difficulty. But I look to Kenya’s future filled with hope. And I’m hopeful because of you, the people of Kenya, especially the young people.
There are some amazing examples of what’s going on right now with young people. I’m hopeful because of a young man named Richard Ruto Todosia. Richard helped build Yes Youth Can — I like the phrase, Yes Youth Can — (applause.) It became one of the most prominent civil society organizations in Kenya, with over one million members. And after the violence of 2007, 2008, Yes Youth Can stood up to incitement, helped bring opportunity to young people in places that were scarred by conflict. That’s the kind of young leadership that we need. (Applause.)
I’m hopeful because of a young woman named Josephine Kulea. (Applause.) So Josephine founded Samburu Girls Foundation. And she’s already helped to rescue over 1,000 girls from abuse and forced marriage, and helped place them in schools. (Applause.) A member of the Samburu tribe herself, she’s personally planned rescue missions to help girls as young as 6 years old. And she explains that, “The longer a girl is in school, everything for her — for her income, for her family, for this country — everything changes.” She gives me hope.
I’m hopeful because of a young woman named Jamila Abass. So Jamila founded Mfarm, which is a mobile platform that is already used by over 14,000 people across Kenya. Mfarm makes it easy for farmers to get information that lets them match their crops with what the market demands. And studies show that it can help farmers double their sales. So here’s what Jamila said: “I love Kenya because you feel you are home anywhere you go.”
Home anywhere you go — that’s the Kenya that welcomed me nearly 30 years ago as a young man. You helped make me feel at home. And standing here today as President of the United States, when I think about those young people and all the young people in attendance here, you still make me feel at home. (Applause.) And I’m confident that your future is going to be written across this country and across this continent by young people like you — young men and women who don’t have to struggle under a colonial power; who don’t have to look overseas to realize your dreams. Yes, you can realize your dreams right here, right now. (Applause.)
“We have not inherited this land from our forebears, we have borrowed it from our children.” So now is the time for us to do the hard work of living up to that inheritance; of building a Kenya where the inherent dignity of every person is respected and protected, and there’s no limit to what a child can achieve.
I am here to tell you that the United States of America will be a partner for you every step of the way. (Applause.)
God bless you. Thank you. Asante sana. (Applause.)
