Annual Meeting 2010 Convened in Manila
The 2010 J-SEAM Annual Meeting was held in Manila, Philippines, from 16-17 June, where 37 participants from the official government departments of 11 nations gathered at a conference with the technical cooperation of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
This was the first annual meeting for J-SEAM, which has been repurposed from JARCOM, which saw the well-prepared implementation of South-South Technical Cooperation, and the enhancement of networks between JICA and member agencies in Southeast Asian countries.
The two-day meeting, held annually, discusses areas of need and needs-resource matching technical cooperation collaboration among official government member agencies and JICA offices.
The Secretariat introduced the new J-SEAM website to members, which can be used to generate ideas on South-South Cooperation (SSC) technical cooperation activities, provide information and allow for communication sharing, whilst users found interesting courses they can apply for directly.
Jonathan Uy, Director of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) , Philippines, who is heading the Philippines delegation and was co-chair of the meeting, said one of the objectives of the meeting would be to determine how developing countries contribute to development to enhance the J-SEAM framework with a view to mutual encouragement and growing together.
The above agenda was addressed by the discussion on their recent move toward on cooperation development. All member countries have policies that promote moving forward together through development cooperation. Furthermore members agreed to launch Policy Dialogue which is an additional way to build up J-SEAM for greater efficiency in coordination and development cooperation.
During the Group Dialogue, where the member countries discuss their needs and resources based on the proposals for new SSC projects, a total of 8 proposals out of 9 have been agreed to further elaborate towards implementation.