Georgia to get Japanese ambulances

On 18 September a signing ceremony was held at the Multipurpose Hall of the Embassy of Japan in Georgia. A grant contract was signed between Ambassador Mr. Masayoshi Kamohara and Mr. Zaza Sinauridze, the General Director of the Gudushauri National Medical Centre, concerning a project to improve the quality of emergency medical service provided by its Centre of Disaster Medicine (CDM). Five secondhand ambulances are to be imported from Japan to be used in providing emergency services for the population of Tbilisi and eastern Georgia. The project will cost 80,735 USD and about 2.5 million people will benefit from it.

Ambassador Kamohara expressed his sincere gratitude to the staff of the Centre for Disaster Medicine, adding that nothing could have been done without their strenuous efforts to formulate the project. “The project which will soon be signed today will be the 85th grassroots project implemented by the Government of Japan. 47 of these are related to the construction or rehabilitation of kindergartens and schools, 13 are implemented in welfare institutes and14 relate to the development of hospitals and medical centres, including this Gudushauri National Medical Centre,” the Ambassador stated at the ceremony. In 2001 the Japanese Government provided the Gudushauri National Medical Centre with medical equipment as part of a general grant of 4.3million USD.

The Grassroots and Human Security Grant Assistance Programme supports relatively small projects undertaken by municipalities, medical institutions, academic bodies and NGOs which aim to improve the living standards of the Georgian people suffering from hardship. Such projects might be implemented in the fields of public health, medicine, elementary and secondary education, social protection and the environment, poverty reduction and increase of incomes. This programme began in 1998, and including this project 5,721,807 USD has been spent under it in Georgia.

Japan’s Overseas Development Aid to Georgia totals approximately 150.5 million USD and covers a wide range of areas such as the improvement of the economic infrastructure and the agricultural and social sectors, the cultural field and human resource development.