The Governments of Singapore and France have signed a Letter of Intent to formalise a Third Country Training Programme for Southeast Asian countries on 16 March 2007. The Letter was signed by Permanent Secretary (Foreign Affairs) Mr Peter Ho and French Secretary General for Foreign Affairs Mr Philippe Faure.
Since 2001, Singapore and France have cooperated to provide technical assistance on an ad-hoc basis to Southeast Asian countries. The Third Country Training Programme institutionalises cooperation between Singapore and France. It also facilitates closer collaboration in various human resource capacity building programmes for Southeast Asian countries in fields such as governance, health and higher education.
Singapore has been partnering developed countries and international organisations to provide technical assistance to developing countries since 1992 under the Singapore Cooperation Programme (SCP). The SCP is administered by the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (Please see Annex A for more information on the SCP)
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MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
SINGAPORE
16 MARCH 2007
Annex A
About the Singapore Cooperation Programme
Singapore's technical assistance programme is based on the training and development of human resource, in competencies useful to developing countries. As a country whose only resource is its people, Singapore believes that human resource development is vital for economic and social progress. Singapore itself has benefited from training provided by other countries and international organisations. Through the SCP, Singapore shares its development experience with other developing countries.
The SCP was formally established in 1992 to bring together under one framework the various technical assistance programmes offered by Singapore. Over the years, the range and number of training programmes have been increased to meet the training needs of developing countries. To date, Singapore has sponsored training courses and study visits for over 47,000 officials from 166 developing countries in Asia-Pacific, Africa, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Latin America and the Caribbean.
More information on the SCP is available at http://www.scp.gov.sg/.
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