Japan has decided to contribute US $40 million to international humanitarian programmes in Sudan, the country’s embassy in Khartoum announced today. The funds will go toward the UN and Partners 2010 Work Plan for Sudan, and will be drawn from Japan’s supplementary budget of fiscal year 2009.

H.E. Akinori Wada, Japan’s newly arrived ambassador-designate, announced his country’s commitments as pledged at the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development and the Third Sudan Consortium in Oslo, both of which were held in May 2008. The donor event held in Japan in 2008 hosted over 40 African leaders in Yokohama.

The Japanese Embassy issued a press release disclosing that the budget includes 15 million USD for World Food Programme food aid and cash/voucher projects, 11 million USD for the UN agency for children (4.5 million USD for Darfur, 6.5 million USD for Southern Sudan), 6 million USD for the UN refugee agency (2 million USD for Darfur, 4 million USD for Southern Sudan), 3.5 million USD for emergency mine action activities such as mine clearance in Southern Sudan and mine risk education in South Kordofan State, and 4.5 million USD for International Committee of the Red Cross projects to improve economic security in Darfur.

The Association for Aid and Relief, a Japanese NGO, will implement some of the mine action activities.

The Government of Japan’s grant assistance to Sudan since the signing of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement has amounted to over 461 million US dollars. Additionally, Japan is the second largest donor to worldwide UN peacekeeping operations (16.6% in 2009), next to the United States.

Japan’s press release noted that the country has maintained its donor position despite the worldwide financial crisis.

The total amount of Japan’s assistance to Sudan in 2009 reached 162 million US dollars, according to Ambassador Wada. The just announced additional contribution is part of the Japanese government’s plan to double its official development assistance to Africa including Sudan by 2012.

This announcement follows shortly after a public disclosure by a Toyota Tsusho executive in Nairobi that the Japanese company would like to build an oil pipeline from the capital of South Sudan to the coast of Kenya.