KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia should play a big role in Afghanistan's rebuilding starting with the health sector which can be further enhanced into other areas by opening the Malaysian embassy in Kabul.
In that regard, Afghanistan's launching of a capacity building initiative to have more medical personnel should be an opportunity for Malaysia to offer expert assistance, said the Minister of Public Health, Dr Qalandar Ibaad Jan.
"We will share our proposals and hope for public and private support including signing a few memorandum of understanding (MOUs) with Malaysian public and private medical institutions, hopefully in the coming year," he said.
Dr Qalandar also believed that both countries can strengthen relations further into other sectors especially trade if Malaysia can open its embassy in Kabul.
"We want good relations with Malaysia in many areas especially in import-export and education.
"We have a beautiful country with natural resources and if Malaysian tech expertise including investors can come, they can contribute to a better Afghanistan," he said.
The minister, together with 10 other officials, is visiting Kuala Lumpur for the first time under the auspices of UNDP (United Nations Development Programme).
They met officials, academicians and NGO representatives to exchange ideas plus explaining the present phase of Afghanistan rebuilding after over two decades of war.
Explaining further, Dr Qalandar also elaborated his and Afghan administration's hope that an exchange programme of medical personnel including training of doctors and nurses can be just the start in that direction.
He suggested for such a programme can be held for one, two or three months at a time or even longer like a diploma course (one year), certificate or post graduation programmes (one to three years).
Afghanistan currently needs more qualified academic and experience doctors and nurses in many more areas of the country.
Therefore, he said, various entities including educational and medical institutes, teaching hospitals, post graduation training and doctorate programmes should be involved in this effort.
"We want to send doctors to Malaysia while Malaysian professors can come to Afghanistan and start lectures or training programmes.
"Various Malaysian institutions can train us including hold exams while academicians can visit or even do it online to which a certificate from a recognised university can be handed out to our people.
"This is our special request," he said, adding that the Malaysian Health Ministry can play a part in making the plans a reality for the short, medium and long term.
Part of the reason has been the failure of the previous Afghan government to provide essential coverage of health services to the whole country.
"The former administration only covered 30-40 per cent coverage of essential health services for the whole country. Only recently the coverage has gone up 100 per cent since the new government took over (two years ago)," he said.
For example, about 300 various levels of hospitals and treatment centers had been established in the last two years and other support services including vaccination programmes were able to be arranged in areas where before there's no services for 20 years.
Asked his opinion of the often negative view of the media especially the Western press towards the new government in Kabul, Dr Qalandar points to two reasons:
"They do not show reality on the ground but keeps on persuading the people to criticise the sitting Islamic government.
"They also for the most part only show fake data, poor situation of a mother and children and bad condition of health so that they get funds for their operation," he said.
Explaining his programme in the Malaysian capital, he said that Afghanistan is also looking at Malaysia's approaches to control HIV-Aids diseases including drug addicts and usage of methadone for treatment.
"Using Malaysia as a guide, we also look at how to collect data countrywide on HIV patients, how to coordinate with different ministries to control HIV or hepatitis-B and others including seasonal diseases.
"It is very important to contribute and share details of these areas of challenges. The government of Malaysia has good experience, strategy and policy and we find your action plans to be effective," he said.