The Joint Japan/World Bank Graduate Scholarship Program (JJ/WBGSP) is open to women and men from developing countries with relevant professional experience and a history of supporting their countries’ development efforts who are applying to a master’s degree program in a development-related topic.

Host Institutions/Programs of study:

JJWBGSP offers scholarships for over 200 Preferred Programs (.xlsx 49 KB) spanning a wide array of development topics and for 14 Partner Programs (.xlsx 15 KB)  at universities in the U.S., Africa, and Japan in key areas of development, including economic policy management, tax policy, and infrastructure management.

Target group:

Developing country nationals

Scholarship value/inclusions/duration:

A JJWBGSP scholarship provides tuition, a monthly living stipend, round-trip airfare, health insurance, and travel allowance.

Please note all JJ/WBGSP scholarships cover the duration of the graduate program or two years, whichever is less.

Eligibility:

The applicant must meet the following eligibility criteria:

1. • Be a national of a World Bank member developing country;
2. • Not hold dual citizenship of a developed country;
3. • Be in good health;
4. • Hold a Bachelor (or equivalent) degree earned at least 3 years prior to the Application Deadline date;
5. • Have 3 years or more of recent development-related experience after earning a Bachelor (or equivalent) degree;
6. • Be employed in development-related work in a paid full-time position at the time of submitting the scholarship application.  The only exception to this criterion is for developing country nationals from a country that will be on the updated list of Fragile and Conflict States provided to applicants in the Application Guidelines for each call for scholarships.

• On or before the Scholarship Application Deadline date, be admitted unconditionally (except for funding) for the upcoming academic year to at least one of the JJ/WBGSP preferred university master’s programs located outside of the applicant’s country of citizenship and country of residence listed at the time the call for scholarship applications open.

• Not be an Executive Director, his/her alternate, and/or staff of any type of appointment of the World Bank Group or a close relative of the aforementioned by blood or adoption with the term “close relative” defined as Mother, Father, Sister, Half-sister, Brother, Half-brother, Son, Daughter, Aunt, Uncle, Niece, or Nephew.

Application instructions:

The call for scholarship applications will open in March yearly.

For scholarships to one of the preferred master’s programs, you must first apply and be unconditionally accepted for admissions to one or more of the Preferred Program(s) to be considered for a JJ/WBGSP scholarship.  To apply, you must follow the 2018 JJ/WBGSP Application Guidelines. The call for applications is open from 22 February to 12 April yearly. 

For scholarships to one of the partner master’s programs, you must apply for admission to one or more of the Partner Masters Degree Program(s). After reviewing submitted applications, each Partner Master Degree Program will identify a short list of eligible candidates who will then be invited by the JJ/WBGSP Secretariat to apply for a JJ/WBGSP scholarship.  Inquiries on how to submit an admissions application to a partner program should be submitted to the respective university.

It is important to visit the official website (link found below) for detailed information on how to apply for this scholarship.

Website:

Official Scholarship Website:  http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/scholarships