JICA'S 2ND PHASE BRIDGE PROGRAM LAUNCHED

SANA'A, Feb. 03 (Saba) - Minister of Education Abdul-Salam al-Jawfi
inaugurated here on Wednesday the second phase of JICA's Broadening
Regional Initiative for Developing Girls' Education (BRIDGE) program.

During the inauguration, al-Jawfi affirmed the importance of
benefiting from the BRIDGE in the field of educational cadres
capacity building in the Ministry, hailing the JICA's efforts in
carrying out the programs first phase in Taiz province and the
second in Dhamar province.

The Minister also emphasized taking the advantages of the first
phase in order to avoid the negative aspects and difficulties in the
second one.

He also noted the significance of coordination and cooperation with
the Local Council in the province for facilitating JICA's tasks to
ensure the program success.

For his part, the JICA Resident Representative in Yemen Office
Takeshi Komori praised the existed cooperation between the Ministry
and the Local Council with the JICA to help the project succeed with
its two phases.

The JICA official noted that the support which is provided by the
Japanese government aims at developing community capacity building
by encouraging the enrolment of girls in education.

He also gave a brief explanation on the JICA's project, reviewing
its main goals and components.

At the session work, strategies related to the first and second
components of the project "Public Education" and the strategy of the
third component "Girls Education" were discussed.

FJ/AM