Grant Aid to Afghanistan for the Project for Improvement of Equipment of the Universities in Kabul

March 18, 2004

1. The Government of Japan has decided to provide grant aid to a maximum of 416 million yen to the Transitional Administration of Afghanistan for the purpose of contributing to the implementation of the Project for Improvement of Equipment of the Universities in Kabul. The documents regarding this grant aid were exchanged between Ambassador to Afghanistan, Kinichi Komano from the Japanese side and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah on March 18 (Thursday) in Kabul.
2. After experiencing over 20 years of civil war, Afghanistan is now carrying forward the peace and reconstruction processes based on the Bonn Agreement of December 2001. The Transitional Administration of Afghanistan has positioned education as one of the most important area of national reconstruction in their National Development Plan, and has established a strategy pertaining to reconstruction of higher education in the Development and Reconstruction of Education which was formulated with the cooperation of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). However, due to the long-lasting civil war, buildings and facilities of institutions of higher education have been destroyed, and equipments for practical training and experiments taken, leaving Afghanistan with an extremely inadequate educational environment.
   
   In addition, due to fragile financial conditions, the remuneration of teachers has been delayed, there are difficulties in ensuring enough number of teachers with sufficiently high quality, and difficulties in improving the equipment for practical trainings and experiments to realize a practical curriculum.
   
   >Under such circumstances, the Transitional Administration of Afghanistan has established the Project for Improvement of Equipment of the Universities in Kabul for the purpose of human resource development that will support the future of Afghanistan through improvement in higher education skills. It has requested grant aid to the Government of Japan for funds necessary to provide equipment for practical training and experiments to universities in Kabul such as the departments of science and engineering, agriculture and veterinary science at Kabul University in Kabul City.
3. This grant aid is to be implemented as part of the humanitarian and reconstruction assistance which the Government of Japan announced at the International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan in January 2002.