Edna Adan Ismail: the nurse-midwife who built a hospital in Hargeisa

Early life and training

Edna Adan Ismail was born in Hargeisa in 1937, when it was the capital of British Somaliland. Her father, Dr Adan Ismail, is described as a founder of medical care in the country (Templeton Prize, 2023 announcement).

She was tutored in secret with her brother until she was 15. A scholarship exam usually kept for boys took her to Britain to study nursing and midwifery (VOA, 16 May 2023). She was the first Somali girl to study in the UK, at Borough Polytechnic in London (Templeton Prize).

In 1961 she came home as the country's first professionally trained nurse-midwife (Templeton Prize). She was also the first woman appointed a director in the Ministry of Health (VOA 2023).

Speaking out on female genital cutting

Edna has said in public that she was cut at the age of 8, without her father's knowledge. As a young midwife she treated women with serious birth injuries caused by the scarring. After a 1976 conference in Sudan, she began to speak about the practice openly at home, despite threats (VOA 2023).

"Islam forbids female circumcision," she has said (VOA 2023). For how common cutting still is, see Health in Somalia.

The World Health Organization

When war broke out in the north, she joined the WHO. She was its regional technical officer for mother and child health from 1987 to 1991. She then served as WHO representative to Djibouti from 1991 to 1997 (VOA 2023; Templeton Prize).

The hospital

After 1991 she returned to Hargeisa. The authorities there gave her a plot of land that had been an execution ground and a rubbish dump. She sold all her own assets to pay for building, then raised more money abroad after a New York Times profile (Templeton Prize).

The Edna Adan Maternity Hospital opened in 2002. Its teaching programme became Edna Adan University in 2010 (VOA 2023).

• More than 30,000 babies have been born at the hospital.
• Maternal deaths at the hospital fell by up to 75%.
• More than 4,000 students have trained there as doctors, nurses, midwives and other health workers.
• Women are 80% of the staff and 70% of the students.

(Templeton Prize; VOA 2023.)

Public office

She was married to Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal during his time as prime minister of Somalia. In Hargeisa she later served as minister of social affairs from 2002, and as foreign minister from 2003 to 2006 (Templeton Prize).

The Templeton Prize

In May 2023, aged 85, she won the Templeton Prize, one of the world's largest yearly awards to a single person. It was worth about £1.1 million (nearly $1.4 million). She was the first African woman to receive it (Templeton Prize; VOA 2023).

She planned to use part of it to train "the next generation of health care workers that East Africa so desperately needs" (VOA 2023).

Sources

• Templeton Prize (2023). Edna Adan Ismail receives the 2023 Templeton Prize.
• VOA News (2023). Prominent foe of female genital mutilation wins prestigious Templeton Prize.