Pharmacy education varies widely in its scope and emphasis throughout the world, and the differences in curricula in the Southern and Eastern African region are no exception.

The WHO-sponsored Nyanga workshop in 1997 issued the Nyanga Declaration, recommending the revision of the Undergraduate Pharmacy Curriculum (UPC) by institutions offering pharmacy education in Southern and Eastern Africa¹.

¹ WHO. Revision of undergraduate pharmacy curricula. Report of an informal consultation, Nyanga, Zimbabwe, 18-20 April 1997. Geneva: World Health Organization; 1998. WHO/DAP/98.1.

Recommendations included:

• adoption of a four-year pharmacy degree programme;

• skills, competency, problem-based learning and assessment methods should receive special attention in UPC;

• inclusion of practice-based learning in UPC, e.g. industrial pharmacy, retail pharmacy, hospital pharmacy and rural attachments;

• patient-oriented UPC which covers the ethical responsibilities of professional pharmacists;

• a review of UPC every 5 years.

It was necessary to review the progress made by various pharmacy education institutions and to identify obstacles encountered during the revision exercise and the new strategies being implemented. Against this background the Department of Pharmacy of the University of Zimbabwe proposed, among other things, a follow-up Workshop to consider a harmonization process for UPC in the Southern and Eastern African region. WHO agreed and sponsored the Workshop, which brought together representatives of pharmacy schools and pharmacy councils, and members of UPC review committees from Botswana, Malawi, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe. The Workshop programme is provided in Annex 1 and a detailed list of participants in Annex 2.