Moving Ahead with the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health

See update on this forum.

From July 26-28, CapacityPlus leaders took part in a coordinators’ meeting in Tokyo to contribute to planning the Global Health Workforce Alliance Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health.

Maurice Middleberg, CapacityPlus director and IntraHealth International vice president for global policy, is coordinating the Forum’s session on financing the education and training of health workers. James McCaffery, CapacityPlus deputy director for HRH/health systems strengthening from partner TRG, is coordinating the session on sustainable capacity-building for HRH policy and management toward health systems strengthening. These represent two of the 19 parallel sessions planned for the Forum.

Coordinators of each plenary and parallel session presented their designs and led feedback discussions. The group discussed session content, overlaps, and gaps, then determined next steps and deadlines. Based on feedback, Middleberg and McCaffery will now revise and resubmit their designs to the Global Health Workforce Alliance to form part of the next edition of the Forum program.

“We are pleased that CapacityPlus has been asked to assist in designing the critically important Global Forum on HRH in Bangkok in January 2011,” said Middleberg. “We are very encouraged by the progress we saw at the Tokyo meeting and congratulate GHWA, as well the Forum sponsors, for their work in organizing the Forum.”

McCaffery sees good progress too. “Overall, excellent and substantive discussions led to useful changes in sessions and the overall design,” he said.

The Forum’s plenary topics currently include the following:

• From Kampala to Bangkok: Marking progress, forging solutions
• Leadership, governance, and coordination for universal access to support health workers
• Innovations in HRH that support strengthening of the health systems.

Photo: Trevor Snapp. (Health workers in Kenya)