By Zakaria Abdul Wahab, NNN-Bernama,
Singapore : Singapore has offered Palestinians places for a series of technical and capacity building courses that are relevant to their development needs.
The offer was made by Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Dr Balaji Sadasivan, at the New Asia Africa Strategic Partnership Capacity Building Conference on Palestine in Jakarta on Monday.
He said Singapore had identified 23 technical and capacity building courses under its Singapore Co-operation Programme and Asia Middle East Dialogue training centres.
The courses cover areas such as human resource management, information and communication technology (ICT), and public governance and administration.
Singapore was also prepared to consider customising courses in English language and protocol training, he said. The text of his speech was released here.
The courses were identified as they corresponded with several of the Palestinian National Authority’s proposed projects, he said.
Balaji said the specially-designed courses, aimed at maximising flexibility to better meet the PNA’s wide range of developmental needs, were from its one million Singapore dollars (one USD = about 1.348 SGD) technical assistance package pledged at the Paris Donors’ Conference.
He said Singapore would accord priority to qualified Palestinians to attend courses and hoped the PNA would take advantage of the package that it had put together.
Singapore hoped that the courses would contribute towards the capacity-building process that was critical for the Palestinians, he added.
Balaji said Singapore had consistently supported all efforts to achieve the goal of two states — Israel and Palestine — living side by side in peace and security.