A Ukraine delegation comprised of representatives from local government offices and agencies related to city infrastructure visited Yokohama during a trip to Japan hosted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The trip was aimed at supporting and promoting recovery and reconstruction efforts in Ukraine, and during the visit to Yokohama the delegation met with Mayor Takeharu Yamanaka, attended a discourse on urban development, and spent the day touring some key facilities of interest, including a mobile medical facility built inside of shipping containers, and a sewage sludge treatment plant. This visit is the newest in a long relationship between Yokohama and Ukraine, with the Mayor of Odesa having just visited Yokohama earlier this year in March.
During their visit to Yokohama, these representatives first met with Mayor Yamanaka of Yokohama City. Igor Korkhovyi, Deputy Minister for Communities and Territorial Development of Ukraine, introduced Mayor Yamanaka to the current situation in Ukraine, including the country’s need for infrastructure restoration and reconstruction, and expressed interest in learning from Yokohama’s experience and knowledge. Sergiy Tetyukhin, Deputy Mayor of the city of Odesa, thanked Yokohama for all of the support it has continued to show its sister city of Odesa, and Serhii Koreniev, Deputy Mayor of Mykolaiv, noted that water purification equipment that Yokohama originally supplied to Odesa was then lent to Mykolaiv in its time of need, and has played a vital role in supplying clean drinking water to its citizens.
Next, the delegation attended a presentation from Yokohama representatives aimed at sharing some of the city’s knowledge and experience with urban development in Yokohama to contribute to reconstruction efforts in Ukraine, including the introduction of public-private partnership initiatives related to road network planning and maintenance and the optimization of balancing energy grid supply with demand.
Afterward, the delegation visited and inspected a mobile medical container facility developed and commercialized by Sansei Co., Ltd. This portable health clinic, known as the Medical Container Cube (MC-Cube) is built to attach to a truck tractor for quick deployment and relocation, and can be equipped with a portable power generator and advanced medical technology, including a Computed Tomography (CT) scanner and related peripherals. Odesa, Sansei, and the Yokohama Urban Solution Alliance (YUSA) entered into a Memorandum of Cooperation related to the usage of these mobile medical container facilities in Odesa, Ukraine. Future discussions are planned to organize the free loan of MC-Cube units from Sansei to Odesa as well. Deputy Minister Igor Korkhovyi commented, “[This] medical container solution, to my personal point of view, is very appropriate for those cities which have destroyed medical facilities.”
Lastly, the delegation finished its tour of Yokohama by visiting the Hokubu Sludge Treatment Plant, which utilizes reclaimed sewage water and sludge generated in the process of water and sewage treatment as resources. Yokohama introduced the Ukrainian representatives to its power generation and resource utilization efforts using this sewage sludge, as well as a bio-gas power generation project.
Yokohama has contributed its knowledge on infrastructure and industrialization challenges to Southeastern Asian cities through the Asia Smart Cities Conference before, and is glad to be able to assist Ukraine in its time of crisis and infrastructure rebuilding.
