Ambassador's Message
2021/10/8
It is almost six months since I came to Kathmandu in early March from my former post in Nigeria. Time has gone swiftly and now the Nepali autumn festive season is just round the corner.
However, there are still difficulties caused by COVID-19. We hope the Japanese-made AstraZeneca vaccine, which the Government of Japan pledged in July to donate to Nepal via COVAX facility and arrived here safely in August, will contribute to mitigating the situation under the pandemic. The Embassy of Japan will keep working with the Government of Nepal to fight against the pandemic, as well as strengthening the health system for Nepali people by supporting medical equipment to hospitals over the country.
In April, I presented my credentials to the Rt. Hon. President Mrs. Bhandari at the Office of the President, Shital Niwas. Then I had the opportunity to pay courtesy calls to the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister Mr. Deuba in July and the Hon. State Minister of Health and Population Mr. Shrestha in August. These meetings are beneficial for strengthening bilateral relations between Japan and Nepal.
As I recall this past six months, there were quite a variety of projects undertaken by the Embassy in addition to the COVID-19 preventive topics. There was the successful completion of the Melamchi Water Supply Project, which Japan has been assisting through one of the important component, the Water Treatment Plant (WTP) in Sundarijal which supplies fresh drinking water to Kathmandu. Unfortunately the project was affected by heavy monsoon rain since June. I am hoping that the damage would be minimum. In the education-related sector there was the handover ceremony of Patan Secondary School which was damaged by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, and which was reconstructed under the Emergency School Reconstruction Project (ESRP). Moreover, the schemes to support young Nepali government staff for policy study in Japan and training programs for government specialists were also announced within the first half of this year. Besides those projects, I had many opportunities to talk with Nepali people who have affinities with Japan. Even though they were made through on-line, I felt deep sense of goodwill and friendship existing between the two countries. The next year is a special year in terms of our people-to-people exchange. I look forward to talking about it in the next newsletter.
“Prevention is better than cure,” we have to keep this in our mind to live in this pandemic situation, and I hope the situation will ease sometime soon. Meanwhile, please stay safe and I look forward to seeing many of you in person in the not too distant future.
However, there are still difficulties caused by COVID-19. We hope the Japanese-made AstraZeneca vaccine, which the Government of Japan pledged in July to donate to Nepal via COVAX facility and arrived here safely in August, will contribute to mitigating the situation under the pandemic. The Embassy of Japan will keep working with the Government of Nepal to fight against the pandemic, as well as strengthening the health system for Nepali people by supporting medical equipment to hospitals over the country.
In April, I presented my credentials to the Rt. Hon. President Mrs. Bhandari at the Office of the President, Shital Niwas. Then I had the opportunity to pay courtesy calls to the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister Mr. Deuba in July and the Hon. State Minister of Health and Population Mr. Shrestha in August. These meetings are beneficial for strengthening bilateral relations between Japan and Nepal.
As I recall this past six months, there were quite a variety of projects undertaken by the Embassy in addition to the COVID-19 preventive topics. There was the successful completion of the Melamchi Water Supply Project, which Japan has been assisting through one of the important component, the Water Treatment Plant (WTP) in Sundarijal which supplies fresh drinking water to Kathmandu. Unfortunately the project was affected by heavy monsoon rain since June. I am hoping that the damage would be minimum. In the education-related sector there was the handover ceremony of Patan Secondary School which was damaged by the 2015 Gorkha earthquake, and which was reconstructed under the Emergency School Reconstruction Project (ESRP). Moreover, the schemes to support young Nepali government staff for policy study in Japan and training programs for government specialists were also announced within the first half of this year. Besides those projects, I had many opportunities to talk with Nepali people who have affinities with Japan. Even though they were made through on-line, I felt deep sense of goodwill and friendship existing between the two countries. The next year is a special year in terms of our people-to-people exchange. I look forward to talking about it in the next newsletter.
“Prevention is better than cure,” we have to keep this in our mind to live in this pandemic situation, and I hope the situation will ease sometime soon. Meanwhile, please stay safe and I look forward to seeing many of you in person in the not too distant future.