The Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative (HWAI) is launching a Campaign for Sustainable Health Workforce Financing.  Without sustainable financing, the dramatic strengthening needed of the health workforce and the broader health systems in which they operate simply cannot be achieved.  And if this is not achieved, national, regional, and global health goals, including the health-related Millennium Development Goals and Universal Access to HIV/AIDS treatment, prevention, care, and support by 2010, cannot be realized.  An equitably distributed, skilled, motivated, and well-equipped, informed, and managed health workforce is the lynchpin of better health outcomes.

Funds are needed to expand and equitably distribute the health workforce, to empower health workers, and to give them the equipment, skills, and information they require to restore and maintain the health of the people they serve.  There is room for improved efficiency and efficacy of the existing health workforce, and opportunities to make these improvements must be taken.  But developing the workforce urgently needed in poor countries, and creating the conditions in which health workers can be effective, will require significantly increased investments.  The World Health Organization has estimated that $10-20 per capita annually will be required beyond current spending to train and retain the needed number of health workers in countries suffering critical health worker shortages.  This amounts to at least $7 billion annually in sub-Saharan Africa alone by 2015.  The investments may represent considerably more than current spending, but are very small compared to the benefits in lives saved, health restored, and disease prevented – and compared to the combined capacity of Southern and Northern governments to make these investments.

Funds alone are not enough to transform the health workforce and health systems.  The investments must be put to proper use and accompanied by good policies, and along with focusing on overall resource needs, the campaign’s scope includes and supports funding in key areas such as to more equitably distribute the workforce through incentives and other means. 

Funds alone will also not be enough if governments are unable to spend them.  Funds are needed to strengthen the health workforce of all sectors, including NGOs and faith-based organizations, but a significant portion of the investments should flow through governments to support public health systems that typically are the main service providers for the poor.  Yet restrictive macroeconomic constraints limit governments’ ability to make needed investments.  The campaign will work to remove these constraints.

The campaign will be active at both globally and at country level.  The global focus will include advocacy around the Global Fund, macroeconomic constraints, and more.  The country level focus will begin with Uganda and expand to other countries as capacity allows, supporting advocacy for sustainable health workforce financing, developing materials, and learning lessons to inform future campaigning. 

Join the Campaign!

If you would like to get involved, please join the HWAI network by emailing your name, e-mail address, affiliation, and country to Sharonann Lynch of MSF at hwainetwork@healthworkforce.info, who administers the [HCW] listserv, the virtual home of the HWAI network.

Please also support the 15% Now! Campaign, spearheaded by one of HWAI’s Steering Committee members, the Africa Public Health Rights Alliance.