Health Workforce

In area of Advocacy, Resource Mobilization and Partnership, focus is on promoting partnership and networking at country and regional levels, including strengthening the institutional infrastructure in countries and financing of HR development.

This is accomplished through:

• Advocating for improvement of workforce at regional and national level

• Supporting regional networking of stakeholders for dialogue on effective strategies to address the HRH crisis in the region

• Mobilising financial resources for HRH development at regional, inter-country and national level.

• Establishing a network of a key pool of experts in HRH development

• Supporting the strengthening of regional training institutions and WHO Collaborating Centres.

• Supporting African HRH Platform and its Steering Committee activities

• Establishing intra- and inter-divisional collaboration on key health workforce issues.

In teh area of Health Sciences Education Systems Including Medical Education, focus is on supporting countries for strengthening national education systems, including schools and universities, to support production of all types of health workers, with appropriate skills and competencies through:

• Supporting the evaluation of training programmes in terms of relevance and capacity for scaling up production of HWs

• Supporting the strengthening of accreditation mechanisms in countries

• Supporting the reforming of health sciences training programmes and curricula

• Supporting the introduction of innovative training methods such as distance learning

• Supporting the strengthening of training capacity in countries in terms of training of trainers, teaching equipment and materials, infrastructure investment and development.

• Supporting networking and twinning of training institutions, WHO Collaborating Centres and exchange of expertise within and outside the region

• Supporting national continuing education processes

• Strengthening the strategic management of fellowships.

In the area of Human Resource Intelligence, focus is on contributing to the generation of human resources intelligence, through HR information systems and research including the establishment of national and regional observatories for evidence based policy implementation, monitoring and evaluation through:

• Establishing and maintaining the regional observatory

• Supporting countries for establishment of national observatories

• Supporting the research on HRH key issues in countries

• Maintaining the HRH Web site

• Supporting countries to strengthen HRH information system in the context of Health Information Systems

• Collating and disseminating promising practices in HRH development

• Supporting monitoring and evaluation of HRH development and implementation in countries.

In the area of Management of the Health Workforce, the focus is on supporting countries to promote effective management of health workforce, and create a conducive workplace environment, including recruitment, distribution, motivation and retention strategies through:

• Supporting countries to implement effective HR management practices for recruitment and utilisation of health workers

• Supporting the development and implementation of motivation and retention strategies including working conditions, remuneration, monetary and non-monetary incentives

• Designing evidence based mechanism for managing of internal and international migration

• Designing evidence based mechanism for managing of internal and international migration

• Supporting the improvement of performance of existing health workers.

• Contributing to the Code of Practice for International Recruitment of Health Personnel