The Inauguration Ceremony of the Construction Works of the Bangladesh Institute of Governance and Management (BIGM) was held on Wednesday, 10 May 2023. To celebrate this event, Mr. Farhad Hossain, Honourable Minister of State for Public Administration, Mr. Mohammed Mezbah Uddin Chowdhury, Senior Secretary, Ministry of Public Administration, Mr. IWAMA Kiminori, Ambassador of Japan to Bangladesh, and Mr. ICHIGUCHI Tomohide, Chief Representative of JICA attended the ceremony.
BIGM is a higher education and research institute that offers master’s programs in the public sector to people from diverse backgrounds.
At the ceremony Ambassador Iwama stated that in the speech made by Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio on March 20, 2023, about the new plan for a “Free and Open Indo Pacific (FOIP)”, the PM emphasized the importance of the “people”. The PM mentioned that we will strengthen the “knowledge” connectivity that, focusing on “people”, helps “human resource development”, creates new innovations, and underpins the vitality of the region.
In addition, in the joint statement on PM Hasina’s visit to Japan on April 26 this year, it was mentioned that two Prime Ministers affirmed the importance of developing highly skilled human resources. In this regard, Ambassador Imawa emphasized that it was essential to improve the environment for the development of high-level human resources, and BIGM would truly enhance the capacity of the administrative officials and strengthen the policy formulation by providing highly trained human resources.
Japan provided JPY 2,762 (about USD 21 million) as the grant for BIGM, which is to construct new facilities and procure equipment for the training of administrative officials and for policy research at BIGM, including the grant for the additional cost incurred due to the price escalation affected by difficult global conditions.