Yunus Professional Masters – Special Program for Afghanistan (YPM-SPA)

The Yunus Professional Masters – Special Program for Afghanistan (YPM-SPA) is a new and innovative masters program for Afghan environmental leaders and social business entrepreneurs developed in partnership with the Yunus Center at the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT). The program was established in response the urgent need to provide continuing professional development opportunities for Afghan leaders and entrepreneurs and to address the country’s worsening development and social needs.

Visualized by Nobel Peace Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, the program is co-taught by the School of Environment Resources Development (SERD at AIT), School of Management (SOM at AIT), and Sustainable Smiles.

Students gain a holistic set of competencies in social business, development, economics, policy, sustainability, project planning, and environmental management. The program is unique in its integration of practical, hands-on and issue-based learning, shared success learning, and service learning component. The service learning course builds on the success of our previous program offered in the higher education sector in Afghanistan to build environmental citizenship.

Why is this program important?

Afghanistan has endured more than four decades of conflict, and with the collapse of the democratically elected government in August 2021, the situation for Afghans has become increasingly worse. While life remains uncertain under the Taliban regime, many Afghans continue to endure severe drought, hunger and food insecurity, extreme poverty with the country on the edge of total economic collapse, and gender and women’s rights under serious threat. Considering the confluence of these issues and the interrelated nature of the environmental and humanitarian crises, it is more important than ever that sustainable development initiatives adopt innovative approaches, considering the sensitivity and uncertain political contexts. The integrated nature of these challenges also presents significant opportunities for collaboration, innovation, and entrepreneurship among Afghan participants and Yunus Center AIT’s global network. Our program will offer a professional development opportunity for Afghan environmental leaders and social entrepreneurs to directly address the emerging gaps in the country’s environment and sustainable development sector through social business and entrepreneurship. Our first priority is for leading environmentalists and civic society actors who are no longer able to work or continue their activities in country – especially women.