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The Record of Discussion (R/D) of the technical cooperation project "Local Authorities Capacity Building for Waste Management, Pollution Control, and Disaster Management and Response" was signed between JICA and the Union of Municipalities of Türkiye (UMT) in Ankara. Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs H.E Mr. Sedat Önal, the President of the Union of Municipalities of Türkiye and the Mayor of Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality Mrs. Fatma Şahin, Japan's Ambassador to Türkiye H.E. Mr. Kazuhiro Suzuki and senior executives also attended the ceremony and witness and celebrate the signing.

Prior to the ceremony Mrs. Fatma Şahin underlined the importance of long lasting cooperation between JICA and Gaziantep Metropolitan Municipality. H.E. Mr. Kazuhiro Suzuki, mentioned that agreements of four projects, including this one, are planned to be signed this year. H.E. Mr. Sedat Önal stated that the cooperation to be made within the scope of the project will set an example for the strong solidarity between Türkiye and Japan.

After the opening remarks, the project document was signed by Dr. Hayri Baraçlı, the Secretary General of the Union of Municipalities of Türkiye and Ms. Yuko Tanaka, the Chief Representative of JICA Türkiye Office.

The project aims to transfer Japanese technology and experience in waste management, pollution control, and disaster management as well as dispatch of Turkish municipality's mayors to Japan for on-sight observation.

Long history of cooperation between JICA and Turkey

This project aims to strengthen resilience against disaster in urban cities and improve the urban environment by sharing Japan's experience and knowledge on disaster prevention and waste management issues faced by local governments through a training program for mayors, deputy mayors, district mayors, and other local government officials in Türkiye.

Türkiye is an earthquake-prone country. Major earthquakes exceeding M7.0, such as the Marmara (1999), Van (2011), and Izmir (2020) earthquakes, have caused tremendous loss of life and economic damage. Today, the role of local governments is becoming important in preventing and mitigating damage from disasters. Therefore, JICA has been implementing a number of projects such as disaster prevention education, technology transfer and support for the formulation of disaster prevention plans in order to share Japanese knowledge and experience of disaster prevention with Turkish local government officials. In recent years, in order to create opportunities for Turkish people to learn about disaster prevention, JICA has been supporting disaster prevention education at the Bursa Disaster Prevention Center(Bursa Bosaikan), training and education programs for teachers, students and pupils and holding the Disaster Prevention Contest (Bosai Koshien). This project stands on a long history of cooperation in disaster prevention between JICA and Türkiye and it becomes the milestone as it marks the start of a new technical cooperation in the field of disaster prevention.