The agreement to offer 1.8 million US dollars to support Cambodia's basic education was signed on Tuesday by Cambodia's Finance Ministry and the World Bank.

The grant, provided by a Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) through the World Bank, will help to finance the new project which has a particular focus on inclusion of girls, children with disabilities and other marginalized groups to basic education services, according to a statement of the World Bank.

This four-year project aims to focus its efforts in four specific areas in six provinces of Mondulkiri, Rattanakiri, Banteay Meanchey, Battambang, Koh Kong and Kampot.

"I sincerely hope that the assistance we committed to today will ensure poverty reduction as well as the welfare for all the people in Cambodia," said Takahashi Fumiaki, Japanese Ambassador to Cambodia.

The JSDF was established by the government of Japan and the World Bank in June 2000 as an untied mechanism for providing direct assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable groups in eligible member countries of the World Bank Group.

Ian Porter, World Bank country director for Cambodia, commented that "this project is in line with our new Country Assistance Strategy for Cambodia, which aims at helping Cambodia improve the access and quality of education in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals." According to Education Minister Kol Pheng recently, Cambodia's illiterates in 2003 reached to 32 percent of the population of 13 million.

"With the efforts made by the government, more than 5,200 literacy classes were set up for more than 105,000 people in 2004,helping 76,000 people eliminate illiteracy, among them 53,000 were women or girls," he said.

Source: Xinhua