WHO, World Health Report 2006: Working Together for Health
In 2006, the WHO devoted its world health report to the HRH issue. The report presented some comparative figures on the state of HRH globally. In terms of workforce density, Africa has just 2.3 health workers – including doctors, nurses, and midwives – per 1,000 people compared to 18.9 in Europe. Further, 57 countries have critical shortages of workers, which amounts to a global gap of 2.4 million health workers. In addition to this shortage, almost all countries have maldistribution in workers, mainly between rural and urban areas. But these imbalances are also marked between regions. Africa, for example, has nearly a quarter of the world’s disease burden, but just 3 percent of health workers and less than 1 percent of world health expenditures.
The report put forward a ten-year plan of action (2006–2015) to address this crisis. Strategies should be based on the following:
• Entry: Preparing the workforce through investments in education and recruitment, including building strong institutions, assuring educational quality, and revitalizing recruitment capabilities.
• Workforce: Enhancing worker performance though better management of workers in the public and private sector, including supervision of workers, fair and reliable compensation, and continuing education for workers.
• Exit: Managing migration and attrition to reduce wasteful loss of human resources, including by keeping health as a career choice for women, ensuring safe work environments, and retirement planning
In the immediate term, the report stated, there should be a group of lead countries pioneering national plans for scaling up effective strategies, increasing investments, cutting waste, and strengthening educational institutions. At the mid-point, over half of all countries should have sound national plans with policies regarding incentives, regulation, and institutions. Finally, by 2015, the goal is to have high-performing workforces for national health systems. The report also proposed the creation of a global workforce alliance to bring relevant stakeholders together to accelerate country programs.
The report can be viewed at: www.who.int/whr/2006/en/
