ASTANA – Afghan public health workers arrived in the Kazakh capital April 2 for a two-week capacity-building seminar on maternal and child healthcare organised by the Kazakh Ministry of Foreign Affairs in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
The inaugural panel session was attended by top-ranking officials from the Foreign Affairs and Healthcare ministries, UNDP representatives and Japanese and Afghan embassies, reported the foreign ministry press office.
The seminar is in line with Kazakhstan’s official development assistance to Afghanistan and is aimed at strengthening maternal and child healthcare in the Central Asian region. More than 80 percent of the participants are women.
Afghan health care specialists will become acquainted with the Kazakh healthcare system, focusing on child and maternal health and the organisational structure of prenatal centres. The sessions will include visits to the prenatal care and obstetrics and intensive care departments at the National Research Centre for Maternal and Child Health.
Lectures will be dedicated to technological advancements in treating obstetric complications during pregnancy and childbirth and medical support for newborns in rural areas. Minister of Healthcare Yelzhan Birtanov and professors from Nazarbayev University will be among the speakers, with the nation’s leading research university serving as the main base.
Transferring Kazakh healthcare experience to Afghan women will be the country’s important contribution to the efforts of the world community to help further develop Afghanistan.
Kazakhstan has long been engaged in strengthening Central Asian cooperation and actively supports Afghanistan in developing public life. The first leg of the current programme, capacity building training in government management and education for Afghan government workers and NGO representatives working in the country, was held last July. Twenty-four individuals took part in that programme, gaining experience from their respective Kazakh colleagues.
