JICA held a Media Conference on Friday, 17 September 2021 to officially announced the successful Recipients of the 2021 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Global Leader Program. They are:
1. Ms. Elisapeta Valeli-Malaeulu, Master in International Public Policy at the Graduate School of Business Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba
2. Ms. Faafetai Vaevaina, Master of Science in International Cooperation at the Graduate School of Asia Pacific Study, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University
3. Ms. Victoria Lauina, Master in Social Development and Administration at the Graduate School of Social Design Studies, Rikkyo University
4. Ms. Uaealesi Seleni, Master in International Business at the Graduate School of Business, Rikkyo University
5. Ms. Natalia Te’o, Bachelor of Arts in Social Science at the School of International Liberal Studies, Waseda University.
JICA would like to congratulate the awardees on completing the screening and examination process and wish them well in their academic journey. All five of them will be taking online studies in the interim, due to the current pandemic until it is feasible for them to travel to Japan, hopefully by November this year.The four scholarship recipients who will be undertaking their Masters studies are from various government ministries whilst Ms. Natalia is currently working at a private organization.
The duration of the Bachelors program will be for 4 years, the Master’s program is for 2 years and the PHD program is 3 years (depending on each program offered by universities). In addition, the program incorporates an internship component to enrich the participant’s academic and personal experience.SDGs History:Since the 8th Pacific Leaders Meeting (PALM8) in 2018, Japan and the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) agreed that people-to-people exchanges is an area of great importance. Since then, overseas study programs for individual regions were combined into a worldwide program called the Sustainable Development Goals SDGs Global Leadership Program. Through JICA, the SDG Global Leadership program has provided training programs as part of technical cooperation in various fields. In order to strengthen a network among the target countries in respective fields, JICA established this long-term training program to foster young/middles bureaucrats, academicians and leading human resources in various fields of target countries who will influence policymaking processes of their countries or will contribute to socioeconomic development in the near future.
So far, 12 Samoan nationals have been awarded scholarships under the SDGs programme to study in Japan since 2016. Already, five have successfully graduated from this programme and are now contributing to Samoa’s development. SDGs Objective:The main objective of the SDGs Global Leadership Program is to not only develop high level human resources who would contribute to the development of their own countries, but to also establish and maintain long term relations between the target countries and Japan. Call for Applications:Applications for SDGs Global Leadership Program for the year 2022 will be available from 21st September 2021 and will close 1st November 2021. Interested applicants must contact JICA Samoa office by telephone no. 22572 or email sm_oso_rep@jica.go.jp to request for an application form and related documents.
Extracted fro JICA Samoa website*