The Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative (HWAI) engages in evidence-based advocacy with the goal of enabling everyone to access skilled, motivated, and supported health workers who are part of well-functioning health systems.  Towards this end, we have launched a Campaign on Sustained and Adequate Health Workforce Financing to mobilize the considerable new resources required from wealthy countries and developing country governments, as well as to ensure that macroeconomic policies are consistent with health and other development financing needs.  Along with our focus on adequate funding for health workforce and related health system strengthening, we promote the development of human rights-based health workforce strategies that are designed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, universal access to HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, care, and support by 2010, and other health goals and obligations.  And we seek to empower health workers themselves to become advocates.  We work primarily through issue-focused teams that are open to anyone to join, and are building a broader network of civil society, health workers, and anyone else interested in international health workforce advocacy.  A steering committee oversees and guides HWAI’s activities. 

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Teams and Future Work

To more effectively reach our goals, along with the HWAI network, HWAI operates through several teams, including:

1. •International Health Partnership (IHP): Works to ensure that all IHP+ countries develop comprehensive, costed health workforce plans, have sufficient funding to fully implement these plans and achieve health goals including the MDGs, and adhere to human rights principles including by fully engaging civil society and health workers and by ensuring health services for marginalized populations.
   

2. •Global Fund: Encourages countries to submit proposals to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that include ambitious, technically sound components on health workforce and health system strengthening.
   

3. •White paper on HRH financing and aid architecture: Developing white paper and other material to call attention to major gaps in health workforce financing and in how health aid infrastructure is addressing health workforce financing needs.
   

Other teams focus on increasing developing country financing for health workforce and health system strengthening, on addressing macroeconomic policies that result in limited investments in health and the health workforce, on empowering health workers to become effective health and health workforce advocates, and on developing and sharing principles to which national health workforce strategies should adhere.

If you are interested in joining a specific team, please contact Eric Friedman (efriedman@phrusa.org).

Accomplishments

Our accomplishments and activities thus far have included:

1. •Developing advocacy toolkit for health professionals to engage in health workforce advocacy (http://www.healthworkforce.info/advocacy/HWAI_advocacy_toolkit.pdf).
   

2. •Trainings at the First Global Forum on Human Resources for Health (Kampala, Uganda, March 2008) for health workers and other participants on human rights, advocacy, and macroeconomic policies.
   

3. •Advocacy for a strong Global Fund role in health system strengthening, contributing to improvements in how the Global Fund now addresses health system strengthening.
   

4. •Creating and disseminating our Guiding Principles for National Health Workforce Strategies (http://www.healthworkforce.info/advocacy/HWAI_Principles.pdf).
   

5. •Health workforce advocacy at 2007 and 2008 G8 summits, including helping to spearhead civil society advocacy on health workforce for the 2008 summit.