Shawdesh Desk:

The government of Japan will provide a grant of US $25 million for improvement of governance and development of human resources aiming to promote sustainable development in Bangladesh

An Exchange of Notes and Grant Agreements on the Japanese Grant Aid for the “Improvement of Governance and Management Research and Training Facilities (BIGM) was signed in Dhaka on Wednesday (December 22).

Ambassador of Japan to Bangladesh Ito Naoki, Secretary of the Economic Relations Division Fatima Yasmin and Chief Representative of JICA Bangladesh office Hayakawa Yuho signed the agreement on behalf of their respective sides.

The grant for Bangladesh Institute of Governance and Management (BIGM is to construct new facilities and to procure equipment for the training of senior administrative officials and for policy research at the BIGM.

In order to promote sustainable development of Bangladesh in the future, it is essential to strengthen the policy formulation and execution capacity of senior administrative officials, and this project will improve the training environment for the development of high-level human resources.

BIGM is a higher education and research institute under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Public Administration, and offers master’s programs in the public sector to people from diverse backgrounds, including the private sector as well as the public officials.

With this cooperation, BIGM will become an institute that can respond to new challenges, such as strengthening the collaboration between the public and private sectors, incorporating the promotion of science, technology and innovation into public policy.

It is also planned to share Japan’s development experience in some of the new master’s degree programmes to be established in the future. It is expected that the improvement of the BIGM environment will provide more practical, high-quality research and education, and contribute to the sustainable development of Bangladesh.

“Japanese Development Scholarship (JDS)”, the project started in 2001 and has marked its 20th year. Since 2002 to date, 457 Bangladeshi officials have studied in Japanese universities (Masters and Ph.D) under the JDS scheme.

Among the 19 countries participating in the JDS, Bangladesh has the fifth largest number of JDS fellows studying in Japan.

JDS fellows are expected to play a critical role in the planning and implementation of social and economic development policies, and to become leaders in the future.

The development of human resources is essential for the future sustainable development of Bangladesh, and JDS is playing an important role in this development.

On the same day, Record and Discussions of JICA’s new three technical cooperation projects ”Capacity Building of Nursing Services Phase 2”, “The Project for Improving Ground Handling Capacity at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport”, and ”Project for Strengthening Capacity for City Corporations”, targeting all 12 City Corporations in Bangladesh were also signed.