JICA Tsukuba Center

JICA Tsukuba is an international community where participants of different programs with different languages, cultures, and customs get together. It is an ideal place for exchanging opinions and mutual understanding through face-to-face and heart-to-heart communications.

JICA Tsukuba was established in 1980, locates in Tsukuba Science City with two liaison offices in Ibaraki and Tochigi Prefectures, under its Training Programs it offers a wide variety and range of Knowledge Co-Creation Programs (KCCPs) and Scholarship Programs for participants from different countries in collaboration with the universities and research institutions in the vicinity. Where under its Partnership Programs with Local Governments, NGOs, Japanese private companies, and enterprises, assists to transfer the technology and expand their businesses to the developing countries that directly assist the development and improvement of living standards in recipient countries.

One of the unique features of the Center is, it is equipped with its own paddy and upland fields, greenhouses, net houses and other training facilities, where the experienced instructors are transferring both theoretical and practical knowledges in field of agriculture, rural development, education, climate change, and disaster prevention in response to the needs of developing countries to the participants in order to tackle their own countries issues and challenges upon their return to their organizations and countries. The specialized programs are in upland rice, paddy rice, market-oriented agriculture, nutrition improvement through agriculture, vegetable cultivation and so on. These programs are particularly important from the viewpoint of development of Africa. So far, this center received approximately 30,000 participants from more than 120 countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Oceania. It offers about 80 programs in which accepting 600 participants from different countries while 60% of them are attending the programs in field of agriculture annually.

The center under the JICA long-term training programs provides opportunities to the top-leaders of developing countries to study their Master and Doctoral programs in Japan. Currently, 56 participants studying in Ibaraki and Tochigi Prefectures. This center mainly facilitates and coordinate both their social and academic life throughout their programs.

JICA Tsukuba as an international center in vicinity connecting the participants from different countries with local communities and provides Development Education Support Programs designed for the Japanese school teachers and students, aiming to deepen their understanding of global issues and international cooperation. It also recruits Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) and sent them to the developing countries annually to live with local people and transfer their knowledge and experiences to them.