Naruhito

Crown Prince

Date of Birth: 23/02/1960
Place of Birth: Togu Palace, Tokyo

Japan’s Africa diplomacy is taking a royal turn. Crown Prince Naruhito made his first visit to sub-Saharan Africa this month. During his trip to Ghana on 7-10 March, Naruhito visited President John Atta Mills. He attended a medical symposium held in honor of Hideyo Noguchi, a Japanese doctor who died of yellow fever in 1928 while researching the disease in Accra.

The Prince’s 10-15 March visit to Kenya coincides with the announcement that the Toyota Group is planning a Nairobi base for its regional expansion. The Toyota Tsusho Corporation, the group’s trading arm, is pushing forward with a US$1.5 billion pipeline to link Juba, Southern Sudan, to the Kenyan port of Lamu, where construction of an oil export terminal is mooted. In February, Tokyo offered Kenyan Premier Raila Odinga, who was in town on an investment-seeking tour, tokens of goodwill: a $320 million loan for the geothermal energy sector and a $55 mn. grant for reforestation.

Naruhito was born in 1960. He attended Gakushuin University, earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree in history in 1982 and 1988 resepectively, and studied at Merton College Oxford, in Britain. He attributes his later interest in water conservancy to his research there. The Prince is a patron of the Global Water Partnership and a frequent speaker at World Water Forum summits.

His wife, Masako Owada, is a former foreign service officer and a daughter of Hisashi Owada, the current President of the International Court of Justice. Public attention has long focused on the couple’s inability to produce a male heir; the pressure contributed to the Princess’s withdrawal from public life.