Speech by Princess Zahra Aga Khan at the opening of the Aga Khan Polyclinic in Zanzibar

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Rahim

Your Excellency Mariam Mwinyi, First Lady of Zanzibar;
Honourable Simai Mohammed Said, Minister of Tourism and Heritage;
Your Excellency Nabil Hajlaoui, Ambassador of France to Tanzania;
Honourable Hassan Khamis Hafidh, Deputy Minister of Health;
Madame Robert, Director for Tanzania of the Agence Française de Développement;
Distinguished Guests, Ladies, Gentlemen and Friends,

This project is quite wonderful. It’s wonderful to see a building with the history of this building have a new life, going back to its original purpose.

I am very honoured to be with you here today – this is a milestone in the journey of the Aga Khan Development Network and our Health Services in Tanzania and Zanzibar. We are opening the doors of our first polyclinic in Zanzibar, expanding the Aga Khan Health Services network to the island. Hopefully this facility will provide integrated health to the population, along with our wider system on the mainland.

We are very grateful to His Excellency Dr Mwinyi, President of Zanzibar and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council; and Minister Mazrui; and the Deputy Minister of Health for being with us today; and also the Stone Town Conservation and Development Authority, and their team; and all the Government authorities for their support in enabling us to open this Polyclinic.

Also our sincere thanks to the Agence Française de Développement and the French Government. Our relationship goes back many years and spans many projects around the globe. AFD has been a very valuable partner to us with its international expertise. The Government of France and Agence Française are committed to improving health outcomes in low-income countries, and in East Africa particularly, so thank you very much.

This building has a unique history and it’s going to play an important part for us because as you know this building was first opened in the 1880s to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Queen Victoria’s reign. Around the same time, my great grandfather opened a girls’ school in Zanzibar in 1905. I believe that was the first Aga Khan girls’ school. So the history of this building and of improving health and education in Zanzibar dates back a very long time, and it's wonderful to see this building return to its original purpose as a dispensary.

Between 1994 and 1996, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture restored the building and then in 2021, the board of the Aga Khan Development Network decided to, in conjunction with the Government of Zanzibar, turn this into an Outreach Health Centre. This was made possible by the Aga Khan Health Services, the Aga Khan Foundation, and also the Agence Française de Développement, and we are very grateful to all our partners.

This is just a very brief history of this building. Doctors Farouk Topan and John Tomaro, who are with us, have authored a fantastic book on this building and the history of healthcare in Zanzibar from the 19th century onwards. Copies are available here and I hope you’ll all have a look later.

This Polyclinic will serve as a comprehensive outreach healthcare centre in Stone Town, Zanzibar, staffed by highly trained family medicine specialists. It will provide emergency and urgent care, enhanced diagnostics, dialysis services and dentistry. It will also provide integrated care through digital health connections with the new hospital in Dar-es-Salaam, as well as in-person consultations by specialists from the Aga Khan Hospital in Dar-es-Salaam in cardiology, oncology, neurology and nephrology and other visiting consultants from the Aga Khan Hospital in Dar.

To stand where we are today, and to see the Old Dispensary re-opened as a polyclinic makes me immensely proud. This isn’t just about using and improving an iconic building, but it’s about bringing 21st-century cutting-edge health services to this health dispensary building and reflecting the evolution of the Aga Khan Health Services and healthcare in Tanzania.

It symbolises our commitment to supporting the Government’s vision for a better tomorrow. By providing affordable, equitable health care services, disease prevention and health promotion, the Polyclinic supports the Zanzibar Development Vision 2050, which aims to provide a sustainable universal healthcare system staffed by skilled healthcare professionals and supported by modern medical technologies and facilities.

Thank you for being with us today and thank you to everyone involved in the planning and construction of this Polyclinic. Thank you to the Project Team, the architects, the contractors, the engineers, and all the other professionals who made this project a reality. Thank you Doctors Topan and Tomaro for the lovely booklet, thank you to the Government of Zanzibar, to the Ministry for Health, to our Tanzanian colleagues.

With this building I think one can say that we can’t forget our roots and our history, and how much this amazing building means to the people of Stone Town and Zanzibar, and it's wonderful to see.

Thank you very much.