Joint Learning Initiative
The Joint Learning Initiative on Human Resources for Health was launched in November 2002 in recognition of the centrality of the workforce for global health. Designed to be a learning process for a diverse group of global stakeholders, it intended to both provide a stocktaking of human resources for health as well as recommend strategies for strengthening workforces around the world. The initiative gathered scholars, policymakers, health professionals, and others in seven working groups – on history, supply, demand, Africa, priority diseases, innovation, and coordination. It culminated in the publication, in 2004, of a strategy report -- Human Resources for Health: Overcoming the Crisis.
According to the report, challenges to HRH resulted from a handful of factors including global shortages of health workers (numbered to be some 4 million), skills imbalances, maldistribution of workers between rural and urban areas and, within those, public and private sectors, poor work environments for health workers, and weak knowledge on workforces. To remedy these problems, the initiative put forth an agenda that prioritized strengthening sustainable health systems, mobilization to combat health emergencies in crisis countries, and building the required knowledge base. First, it stated, country leadership and strategies are the entry point for any workforce development plan. Nonetheless, there must be shared global responsibility for addressing HRH, since transnational flows of labor, knowledge, and financing require that country strategies depend on international support. Some of the initiative’s specific recommendations included the creation of national workforce strategies; special attention to the issue of migration, including the creation of a global educational reinvestment fund; and harmonization of donor activities, including the proposal that donors give 10 percent or $400 million of their total $4 billion in lending for human resources to strengthen strategic human capacities. Finally, it recommended the creation of an independent, non-governmental action and learning initiative that would support advocacy, promote shared learning, and monitor progress on the issue.
More information is available at: www.globalhealthtrust.org/JLI.htm
The report is available at: www.globalhealthtrust.org/Report.html
