Millennium Development Goals

The UN’s Millennium Development Goals Report 2011 provides a fascinating snapshot of how far we’ve come in improving health outcomes—and how much further we need to go. Unfortunately, the report ignores the health workforce crisis in many of the countries struggling to meet their 2015 health goals. The MDGs cannot be achieved when large numbers of people lack access to a health worker, yet the persistent, severe shortage of health workers is paid scant attention in the recently released UN report.

A fundamental barrier to improving health is the health worker crisis. The report’s section on Goal 5 (Improve Maternal Health), for example, points out that far too many women are without access to a skilled birth attendant during delivery. While many regions have made progress, “coverage remains low in sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia, where the majority of maternal deaths occur.” Read more »

This post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.

While the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health was full of opportunities, it was also quite deficient in addressing the one global issue that continues to hold back progress to achieving most of the health goals—the Millennium Development Goal 8: Global Partnership for Development. I do, however, remain optimistic.

In my country, Kenya, there is considerable awareness of the health workforce problem and there is momentum to act on many fronts. The Capacity Kenya project has worked closely with the Ministry of Health and others to develop a national Human Resources for Health Strategic Plan, which established national priorities for addressing Kenya’s workforce constraints. Read more »

The global health workforce crisis demands a strategic investment in a long-term solution. Given the limited human resources for health (HRH) available in many countries, an integrated, systems-based approach is necessary if countries are to achieve all the health-related Millennium Development Goals.

The Center for Global Development’s (CGD’s) recent report argues that donors must evolve from the emergency approach required to scale up vertical HIV/AIDS programs to a more sustainable approach that plans for, develops, deploys, and retains a health workforce responsive to the population as a whole.

A call to donors
Based on research conducted in Mozambique, Uganda, and Zambia, the CGD report examined how AIDS programs leveraged health workers, their financial and programmatic inputs into health worker training and deployment, and the effects of these actions on health services. Read more »