Educational experts from Afghanistan, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and five other regional and European organisations have announced the launching of Himalayan University Consortium on Sunday.

A workshop organised by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) on Sunday focused on forging of a strong alliance for teaching, research, training, policy advocacy and specifically on ways of supporting the development of Kabul University.

Participants of the workshop expressed interests in having a greater focus on mountain-specific aspects and topics in university curricula and developing new curricula and academic and non-academic degree and diploma courses that help universities to increase their effectiveness, reach, and relevance to mountain society at large.

By working together on a curriculum and setting up a robust system for exchange of students and faculty, universities and other institutions will be able to maximise the use of their own resources and profit from their combined experience and knowledge, an ICIMOD statement said.

By building mountain specific approaches into university curricula, the organisations hope to develop a cadre of trained professionals able to promote the mountain agenda and support sustainable development of the greater Himalayan mountain region, which extends from Pakistan and Afghanistan in the west; through Nepal, China, and Bhutan; to India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar in the east.

The Himalayan University Consortium would be open to universities and other institutions in the greater Himalayan region, as well as those located elsewhere but engaged in sustainable mountain development initiatives in the region.

The institutions representing in the workshop will form the Founding Members of the new consortium, which will have multiple roles including development of a postgraduate fellowship programme among member universities and institutions, mountain-focused curriculum development, exchange of faculty, knowledge networking, policy advocacy, and promoting the concept and practice of sustainable mountain, development in the region and elsewhere.

The first activities of the Consortium would focus on ways of accessing resources to build the capacity of Kabul University and thus help rebuild and develop its Faculties of Agriculture, Science and others in order to support the long-term development of Afghanistan.

Five Vice Chancellors of universities in Afghanistan, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan and other high level representatives from Asian Institute of Technology, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, ITC-Netherlands, International Development Research Centre, Canada, and ICIMOD announced the launching of the Consortium.