The First Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD I) was organised by the Government of Japan in October 1993. It brought together African leaders and decision-makers, and key players in the international community. These included NGOs and Development and assistance agencies. The meeting was co-sponsored by the Government of Japan, the United Nations Office of the Special Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed Countries (OSCAL) and the Global Coalition for Africa. The conference concluded with the consensus that African development was one of the central foci of the post-Cold War international agenda.

A recurrent theme in TICAD I was the highlighting of economic achievements of Asia and the need for Africa to learn from such experiences, especially with regard to promoting the role of the private sector as the key to economic development. South-South cooperation, specifically African-Asian cooperation through the emulation of best practices and shared experiences was strongly advocated by the Japanese Government.

The TICAD process placed much emphasis on private sector development as one of the keys to economic development. Consequently in August 1998, as a prelude to TICAD II, the Government of Japan in collaboration with UNDP organised a workshop on "Policy Dialogue for Private Sector Development in Africa" in Mauritius. On this occasion the Government of Japan proposed a forum to bring a select number of African and Asian business people together to ostensibly promote bilateral trade and investment but with the underlying intent of increasing the flow of foreign direct investment from Asia to Africa.

The Africa-Asia Business Forum was subsequently endorsed by the Second Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICADII) which took place from October 19-21, 1998. The Government of Japan, the United Nations Development Program, OSCAL, and the Global Coalition of Africa sponsored TICADII. Eighty countries (51 African, 18 North American and European), 40 international organisations and 22 NGOs participated.

The Tokyo Agenda of Action which was proclaimed at the end of TICAD II, spelt out in detail a comprehensive program for promoting African development on the basis of Africa leading the process in an equal partnership with donor countries and agencies. The Agenda underscored three aspects of development - social, economic and the foundations of development including good governance.

The Africa Asia Business Forum was one of the specific programs emanating from the Tokyo Agenda for Action blue print, under Japan's New Assistance Program for Africa, announced by Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi in his Opening Address to the Conference.

The responsibility for designing and implementing the Africa-Asia Business Forum was assigned to UNDP's Special Unit for Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries (SU/TCDC), the unit of the United Nations devoted to promoting South-South Cooperation, and Enterprise Africa, a UNDP Africa project. The Forum was planned to take place in Malaysia from 25 to 29 October, 2001. The Committee met for the Second time in Kuala Lumpur, on October 30th 2001, the day after the Forum to reflect on the experiences of the Forum and lessons learned.

To ensure UN system-wide participation and to embrace a broad spectrum of the development community and the private sector, a Consultative Group of Experts was formed to assist SU/TCDC. The Group consisted of representatives from the Government of Japan, UNDP, Enterprise Africa , The World Bank, UNIDO, UNICTAD, the Malaysia South-South Corporation, Malaysia International Development Agency (MIDA) and representatives of the Asian and Africa private sector. The Group formulated the basic framework and guidelines for the AABF process leading up to and including the Forum. A mid-term review meeting was held in London in August 2001, to review progress in preparations.

For implementation, the SU/TCDC contracted several institutions as well as consultants. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) of the World Bank Group through its field function in Windhoek Namibia (Promote Africa) was contracted to undertake the preparatory arrangement for the Forum, including selection of African and Asian participants in the Forum in collaboration with national chambers of commerce and trade associations.

UNDP Enterprise Africa was assigned to assist MIGA: Promote Africa in the identification, selection and preparation of the African business participants. In Asia, Malaysia South-South Corporation (MASSCORP) undertook on-the-ground preparations in Malaysia for the Forum, including all the host country arrangements, the preparation of the Forum venues and logistics.

In addition, SU/TCDC engaged consultants and received inputs from the multilateral donor community to provide specific expert services deemed crucial for the successful execution of the Forum. These included conducting seminars at the workshops on subjects ranging from investment, negotiations, financing, to legal issue, accounting principles and privatisation, anticipating possible obstacles and forestalling them, designing and executing the media coverage of the Forum and producing a comprehensive report on and analysis of the Forum itself, the process leading up to it and the way forward.