Japan Policy and Human Resource Development Fund

The Japan Policy and Human Resources Development (PHRD) Fund was established in 1990 as a partnership between the Government of Japan (GOJ) and the World Bank.  Over the past 15 years the Fund has supported a wide range of poverty alleviation and capacity building activities. 

Since fiscal year 2000 (FY00), the Government of Japan has contributed over US$ 520m to the PHRD Fund.  It is one of the largest funds managed by the World Bank and is recognized as making a unique contribution to the Bank’s development role in many areas, ranging from preparation of Bank operations to the provision of graduate scholarships to citizens of member countries.

The PHRD Fund supports five main programs:

• The PHRD Technical Assistance (TA) Program.  This is the largest program, and provides grants primarily to assist the Bank’s borrowing member countries with the preparation and implementation of operations financed by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) loans and International Development Association (IDA) credits and grants. In addition, the PHRD TA Program supports a range of climate change-related activities;
• The Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) provides scholarships to support post-graduate training at Masters’ degree level for member country nationals.  Similar scholarship programs supported by Japan are managed by other Multilateral Development Institutions, but the JJ/WBGSP is both the longest-established and by far the largest of these programs;
• The PHRD-World Bank Institute (WBI) Capacity Development Grants Program supports WBI’s capacity development activities, with a focus particularly on activities in East, South and Central Asia;
• The Japan Staff and Extended Term Consultant (ETC) Program supports partial costs of Japanese nationals recruited to work within the Bank for maximum periods of two years; and
• The Japan-World Bank Partnership Program supports activities to promote partnership between Japan and the Bank.

The PHRD TA Program is committed to support poverty reduction efforts.  The focus therefore is on the poorest countries.  During FY05, PHRD approved US$96.32 million for 124 new TA grants.  There are five windows of the PHRD TA program. The fifth window has been introduced in FY06.   

· Project Preparation – to support project preparation activities in all sectors for lower and lower middle income countries and in specific priority areas for upper middle-income countries (for details see FY06 Annual Policy Document). In FY05, a total of 94 grants were approved for US$ 60.91 million for project preparation. In FY06 the PHRD Project Preparation grants may also be used to prepare operations related to Avian flu using the horizontal Adaptable Program Loan (APL) lending instrument.  A flexible set of guidelines will be applied to Preparation grants for these emergency programs.  Preparation grants for Avian flu will support technical assistance for recipient countries to prepare operations which may not be in the CAS or equivalent document and grants may exceed US$ 1.0 million. 

· Project Implementation – to provide TA to address the weaknesses in the capacity of implementing agencies not identified at the time of project appraisal. Nine grants for US$5.0 million were approved for project implementation in FY05.

· Project Cofinancing – to support institutional capacity building components of Bank financed projects in order to facilitate implementation of key policy reforms and governance initiatives. In FY05, 8 grants for US$23.67 million were approved for cofinancing Bank funded projects.

· Climate Change Initiatives  - to promote reduction of green house gas emissions while promoting growth and poverty reduction. 13 grants were approved for US$ 6.73 million under the Climate Change Initiative program during FY05.

· Enhancing Aid Coordination – to support lower and middle income countries enhance aid coordination capacity.  The enhancement strategy must be agreed between the country and the Bank.  The majority of the grants will be for East and South Asia.

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