Japan Productivity Center
Since 2006 the Japan Productivity Center (JPC) has offered the Technical Cooperation on Productivity Improvement to African Nations under the support of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), of the Government of Japan. This is a bilateral relationship with specific PAPA member countries (South Africa, Botswana, Kenya, Zambia and Mauritius). It is geared towards providing individual member countries and their key social partners with the capacity to drive productivity improvement in their respective countries.
In its initial stages, the cooperation focused on 5S and Kaizen, the practical productivity improvement activities implemented by the Japanese companies, thereafter the Elimination of Waste and Quality improvement activities were introduced. Such Japanese productivity improvement activities have assisted the local companies in Africa (pilot companies) to promote efficient work as well as to improve the quality of their services and products. This has helped the National Productivity Organisations (NPOs) in Africa to upgrade their consulting skills of management and production.
The programme consists of study/observational visits to Japan as well as training productivity experts on productivity-improvement methods at enterprise/factory level. More than 80 African participants from PAPA member countries went on different study missions to Japan.
The successes of this partnership was recognised at TICAD IV and V (the Tokyo International Conference on African Development) held in Yokahama in 2008 and 2013 respectively.