1) Afghanistan is one of countries facing serious health situation in the world, and Japan starts support in various area after Tokyo international conference for Afghanistan reconstruction in January, 2002.
2) International Research Center for Medical Education (IRCME), the University of Tokyo, sent faculties as members of JICA expert team for Kabul in 2003 and 2004, and launched support reconstruction of medical education of Afghanistan.
3) IRCME formed consortium in cooperation with Japan Society for Medical Education, International Medical Center of Japan Bureau of International Cooperation and other institutions in order to carry out Medical Education Project to support medical education development of Kabul Medical University, Afghanistan.

We conducted a national survey to examine the status of programs to teach evidence-based medicine (EBM) to undergraduates in Japan. Our survey specifically focused on four areas: 1) recognition of a need to teach EBM, 2) the present status of programs to teach EBM to undergraduates, 3) details of the timing of existing EBM teaching programs and of departments responsible for it. Sixty-four schools (80%) responded. Nearly all respondents agreed that EBM should be taught, and most agreed that it should be taught both before and after graduation. Most respondents stated that departments must collaborate when preparing to teach EBM. At the time of the survey, 22 medical schools (34%) had already started programs to teach EBM and 28 (42%) were planning to do so. Existing programs mainly targeted 4th-year students, but the department responsible for the programs varied among schools. Further evaluation of the effectiveness of existing programs is now needed.