WHO WE ARE

The Japan Local Government Centre (CLAIR, Sydney) is one of the seven overseas offices of CLAIR, the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations.

CLAIR is a semi-government organisation which was established in Tokyo jointly by Japanese prefectures and municipalities (regional and grassroots level governments respectively) to help facilitate their various international programs.

In 1988 the Japanese Ministry of Home Affairs, now known as the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, authorised CLAIR's establishment and continues to provide guidance to CLAIR and its international network of offices in New York, London, Paris, Singapore, Seoul, Beijing and Sydney.

One of CLAIR's main activities within Japan is co-ordinating the JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) Programme, under which young university graduates from overseas are invited to participate in international exchange and foreign language education throughout Japan for 1-3 years. Participants in the 2004 programme number 6,100 and represent fourty-one countries, including 438 participants from Australia and 375 from New Zealand.

What we Do

Our Sydney office was established in 1994 to liaise between regional and local authorities in Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Six states in Australia have affiliations with 6 Japanese prefectures, 92 Australian local governments have a total of 99 links with a Japanese city, town or village and 40 New Zealand local authorities have a total of 43 Japanese sister cities. (as at August 2003)

Our activities include:

*	Research into Australasian government policies and practices
*	Coordinating the Japan Exchange and Teaching Programme (JET)
*	Supporting the affiliations of sister/friendship cities
*	Assisting visiting Japanese government officials to Australia and New Zealand
*	Facilitating international exchange and training programmes for Australian government officials
*	Publishing material in Japanese and English on current trends in regional and local administration
*	Staging an annual one-day Forum.

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