In an opinion piece published by the Daily Monitor, AKDN Resident Representative Amin Mawji writes on an important achievement of the Aga Khan University. This month, AKU will award its 3000th certificate in nursing degrees and diplomas in East Africa. It is an important milestone in the long road to strengthening nursing capacity in the region. Today, across the region, nurses provide care to a wide range of people, often with little support or resources. Yet, we see in different parts of the region, shortages of nurses with good generalist skills and speciality-based nurses. This is why agencies like Aga Khan Health Services and the Aga Khan University have focused their programmes on building capacity where it is most needed.

The AKDN notes that besides being a fertile environment for children to learn multiple languages and experience various cultural backgrounds, the region provides a unique laboratory to observe how children perceive and approach differences in a classroom. Soon after the ECD centres were launched in Khorog, AKES also started an ECD Resource Centre which sought to learn more about early childhood education best practices in order to continue to improve the programme. Since the ECD Resource Centre opened in February 2018, it has reportedly fostered partnerships with Queens University of Belfast and UNICEF to explore concepts about child development.