A cooperation agreement was signed with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) at the British Embassy in Riga today for a donation of GBP 50,000 to the National Latvian Language Training Program.

A cooperation agreement was signed with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) at the British Embassy in Riga today for a donation of GBP 50,000 (LVL 45,000) to the National Latvian Language Training Program. This is the largest single project supporting integration coordinated by the UNDP over the past five years. LETA learned at the United Nations offices in Latvia that Britain's donation was intended to cover the costs of Latvian language lessons for target groups of adults -- the unemployed, the disabled, medical workers, teachers, local government employees and the police. Since 1996 more than 8,000 teachers, 125,000 children and 5,000 adults have bettered their knowledge of the language through the National Latvian Language Training Program. Surveys show that the overall knowledge of the language has improved, while the number of people who have mastered the language to a high level, especially among adults, has not increased considerably. British Ambassador to Latvia Stephen Nash, UNDP Resident Representative in Latvia Jan Sand Sorensen, National Latvian Language Teaching Program Director Aija Priedite and a representative of the Ministry of Education and Science attended the event.