Bangladesh signed a grant agreement with Japan on Thursday to send junior civil servants there for training.According to the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the country recently approved Tk 142 million as grants for this year’s training under its Grant Aid for the Human Resource Development Scholarship (JDS) Programme.
Economic Relations Division Secretary Md. Abul Kalam Azad and JICA Chief Representative Takao Toda signed the agreement after consultations with Japanese ambassador Shiro Sadoshima.
Japan began offering this grant from 2001 to help governments to improve human resources “and thereby extending and enhancing the bilateral relationship with Japan”.
Bangladesh government officials have been using this scheme to improve skills in public administrations, economics, environment policy and international relations by enrolling in Japanese institutions.
“This programme is really beneficial for this country,” Economic Relations Division Secretary Md. Abul Kalam Azad said after the signing.
So far, 213 officers have been sent to Japan, and 181 of them have already returned after being trained.
Ambassador Shiro Sadoshima said human resource development would “create the basic but the most fundamental ground for Bangladesh’s development”.
Takao Toda said those getting training would play ‘leading roles for better governance of Bangladesh’.
He said committed bureaucrats were “the key for clean and reliable administration, in which people put confidence”.
(Source: bdnews24.com)
