On Tuesday, July 3, Mr. Yoshihiko Noda, the Prime Minister, who was visiting Sendai to attend the "World Ministerial Conference on Disaster Reduction in Tohoku", received a courtesy call from Miss Helen Clark, Administrator of the UNDP, who also would attend the Conference, from 2:20 p.m. for approximately 8 minutes. An overview of the meeting is as follows (Mr. Koichiro Gemba, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Tsuyoshi Saito, Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, and Mr. Hiranao Honda, Advisor to the Prime Minister, also attended the meeting):

1. At the beginning, Prime Minister Noda stated that he would like to send a strong message that Japan would construct resilient societies based on human security and promote "mainstreaming of disaster reduction". Moreover, Prime Minister Noda stated that he would like to strengthen cooperation with the UNDP in the field of disaster reduction. In response, Miss Clark stated that disaster prevention is an important field for the UNDP.
   
   
2. Prime Minister Noda stated that the UNDP is an important partner for Japan's diplomatic policy and the Government of Japan would like to cooperate with the UNDP on important issues such as assistance to Afghanistan, discussion on a post-2015 development framework (post-MDGs), and the Fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD V). In response, Miss Clark stated that Japan had proactively played leading roles in major issues and the UNDP would like to cooperate in those issues.
   
   
3. In addition, Miss Clark expressed her gratitude for Japan's continuous support to the UNDP.