BISHKEK: The Saudi Fund for Development has launched a $30 million initiative to improve healthcare and education facilities in Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov looked on as SFD CEO Sultan Abdulrahman Al-Marshad laid the foundation stone for a project to rehabilitate and expand the General Children’s Emergency Hospital in the capital, Bishkek. SFD will finance the project as part of a $30 million soft development loan. The ceremony was attended by Saudi Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan Ibrahim bin Radi Al-Radi, Acting Health Minister of Kyrgyzstan Gulnara Baatyrova, a delegation from the SFD and several Kyrgyz officials. The project will help develop the health sector in Kyrgyzstan and improve pediatric services. It will include building and equipping a five-story surgical building designed to hold 212 beds. Funding for the project includes providing medical and non-medical equipment, furniture for the surgery building, advisory services, and supervising implementation. The Kyrgyz president expressed his appreciation to the Saudi government for its development support, and said the project will help provide Kyrgyzstan with a healthy and sustainable future. Al-Marshad also inaugurated the 14th state school in Bishkek in the presence of Kyrgyzstan Minister of State Kasimampitov Soyunbek. The opening ceremony was attended by Al-Radi and Ulan Mambetakunov, Kyrgyzstan’s deputy minister of education and science. The school’s inauguration is part of a plan to build 30 public schools around the country, benefitting 50,000 students annually and easing the hardships students face trying to reach schools that are far from their homes. The new school, which includes 40 classrooms, vocational and technical laboratories, gyms and integrated boarding health clinics, will ease student crowding in the neighboring school, which has more than 2,000 students. Al-Marshad said: “This school will help raise the absorptive capacity of the education sector, enhance the level of quality education in Kyrgyzstan, and create an effective and safe learning environment for all, and provide new job opportunities. “The project reflects the SFD belief in the noble mission of the education sector as it contributes to developing people and societies, and achieves several development goals, including the fourth goal of the Sustainable Development Goals, which is related to the quality of education. “We always seek to fund projects that support the education sector, which is a key to sustainable development that can achieve social growth and economic prosperity.”