The Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, Prof. Dr. Nabil Kazem Abdel-Saheb, announced the launch of the World Bank grant to support higher education projects in Iraq.

In his speech during the launching ceremony of the project to support education in Iraq in cooperation with the World Bank and the presence of university presidents and representatives, he called for a review of the indicators and financial allocations for universities, explaining that the university educational environment is witnessing a remarkable expansion and turnout due to the rapid population growth rate, noting that the financial aspect represents a challenge for the Ministry of Education Higher Education and Scientific Research and its university institutions that work on parallel tracks to achieve simultaneous goals based on community service, quality of performance and outputs.

He explained that the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research identified an urgent goal within its strategy extending until 2030 related to the need to develop specialized scientific universities that suit the labor market and benefit from partnership and coordination with international donors.

The Minister of Education renewed the demand to give the education file a top priority in the financing file, pointing out at the same time that public budgets indicated diminishing financial allocations for this file over the past years.

In turn, Mr. Andreas Blow, Director of Education Practices at the World Bank in the Middle East and North Africa, said that the World Bank has worked with its partners in the Iraqi government over the past two years to prepare support for higher education, which represents an important sector in Iraq known for its history and educational and scientific status.

He added that the five million dollars granted by the World Bank will contribute to providing training environments in universities and new laboratories, and supplying society with priority disciplines, especially renewable energies, health, agriculture, and electricity, stressing that the World Bank is committed to this support to develop and improve the quality of education.

The participants from the Studies Department, the Ministry of Planning, and the World Bank reviewed the importance of the projects that the Ministry of Higher Education agreed with the World Bank to finance, in the areas of renewable energy, food safety, production, and rehabilitation of prosthetic limbs, modern communication networks, virtual laboratories, as well as a research center and a comprehensive laboratory for examinations of structures and construction materials, and a generation and transmission laboratory Power Distribution and Open Source Technology Lab.