Signing ceremony for a cooperative project (Navigating the Disinformation Age) with the Western Balkans Foundation

2023/9/6
    
  On August 30, Ambassador Takada, together with Mr. Gjergj Murra, Executive Director of the Western Balkans Found (WBF), signed an agreement on the “VerityCon 2023: Navigating the Disinformation Age" project.
 
 The project will identify issues related to disinformation and organize a regional seminar aimed at combating disinformation in the Western Balkan region and beyond with the participation of politicians, government officials, academics, media, and the public. The Government of Japan will provide up to 53,000 euros to the Western Balkans Fund for this project.
 This Japanese support is based on the framework of the Western Balkans Cooperation Initiative launched by former Prime Minister Abe in January 2018, which aims to support socio-economic reforms in the Western Balkan counties toward EU accession, as well as to facilitate cooperation in the region.
 
 Japan attaches great importance to cooperation with the WBF, which has the common objective of supporting the promotion of cooperation in the Western Balkans region as it seeks EU membership. Japan has provided support to the WBF on four occasions, and this is the fifth cooperation project.
 
At the signing ceremony, Ambassador Takada and Mr. Murra, expressed their hope that the seminar on the theme of navigating disinformation age, which has become a global issue, would be a beneficial event not only for the Western Balkans region but also for the entire surrounding region, and confirmed their cooperation for the success of the event.