September 23, 2014
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 Japan Provides Assistance for School Sector Reform Program
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The Government of Japan has decided to extend a grant assistance of three hundred million Japanese Yen (¥300,000,000), which is equivalent to or approximately two hundred sixty-seven million Nepalese rupees (NRs.267,000,000), to the Government of Nepal for the Poverty Reduction Efforts, exclusively intended for the School Sector Reform Program (SSRP). Two separate Notes were signed and exchanged today between His Excellency Mr. Masashi OGAWA, Ambassador of Japan to Nepal, and Mr. Suman Prasad Sharma, Secretary, Ministry of Finance, on behalf of their respective governments.
The education is vital since it eradicates and fights against poverty. It is the foundation for economic and social development. Thus, the expected outcome of the budgetary support extended by Japan to Nepal is overcoming a variety of difficulties related to poverty alleviation efforts and enable to realize the global commitments of Nepal like Millennium Development Goals in education through the implementation of the SSRP.
As a friendly and development partner, the Government of Japan has supported Nepal in its education sector for many decades under the grant aid scheme. The grant extended was for the construction of classrooms and other facilities. All together, about 9,000 classrooms were constructed with approximate eight billion Japanese yen (¥8 Billion). The Embassy of Japan has been working together with different NGOs and INGOs at the grassroots level as well.
Beside this grant aid, the Project for Support for Improvement of Primary School Management (SISM) was implemented from 2008 to 2011 under the Technical Assistance of Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). It aimed at improving the school management with community participation to improve the enrollment and reduce dropout rates. After SISM, Phase 2 is currently under implementation with the strong collaboration of the Department of Education. In addition, the JICA experts have been dispatched to the Department of Education to provide Japanese expertise.
On the occasion, Ambassador Ogawa assured his continuous support to the efforts of the Government of Nepal for accelerating the socio-economic development in Nepal. He further expressed his confidence that all these Japan’s support for development cooperation in Nepal would strengthen the existing friendly relations between Japan and Nepal.
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