Asifa Nurani
Asifa Nurani is a public health professional with over 19 years of experience in international development. Through the years, she has developed skills as well as global and cross–cultural competencies and experiences that have taught her the complexities of working in fragile environments. Most of her working career has been with Aga Khan Foundation, Kenya where she worked as Country Manager (2000-2003) and Regional Programme Manager, Health (East Africa, 2003-2017). She gained tremendous experience in programmatic intervention, health systems strengthening and service delivery focusing on maternal and child health. Among her key accomplishments was the design of childcare services that integrate health, nutrition, and early childhood stimulation to enhance developmental outcomes of children aged 0-3 in rural areas and in urban informal settlements (slums), especially in the context of rapid urbanization. She has presented her work at various international conferences.
Asifa has a Bachelor of Applied Arts, Environmental Health (Ryerson University, 1995), a Master’s in Public Health (Yale University, 1997) and a Masters in Child Development (University of Haifa, 2022). While there have been many great learnings, her field experiences, coupled with the science of early childhood development have taught her that the child-parent relationship can have a significant impact on a child’s later learning, behaviour and overall well-being. Asifa is at a point in her career where she would like to delve deeper into parenting practices in socioeconomic disadvantaged communities in Kenya. Her research is focused on cross-cultural mother-child attachment based sensitive parenting through the lens of poverty.
