U.S. EMBASSY PRESS RELEASE
Mr. William M. Frej, the Mission Director for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to Indonesia and Mr. Ikuro Sato, the Chief Representative for Jakarta from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on June 9. This milestone MOU supports a common agenda in the development of water resource management.
The partnership will be implemented through USAID's ongoing Environmental Services Program (ESP) and JBIC's Medan Flood Control Project (MFCP). The new initiative is called the Medan Water and Waste Management Partnership (MWWMP) and will provide safe water and sanitation services to the urban marginalized communities in North Sumatra by improving drainage control and, water and waste management. It will work in close collaboration with the local government, water and sanitation operators, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community members. An action plan to implement MWWMP is underway and the project will provide support until September 2008.
This MOU supports the "Clean Water for People Partnership" between United States and Japan. This joint initiative was launched in September 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg, which seeks to provide safe water and sanitation to the world's poor.
For further information on this activity, please contact Agus Widianto, USAID Water and Environment Team at 3435-9395.
For further information on JBIC activities contact Shigeru YAMAMURA at s-yamamura@jbic.go.jp or 522-0693