“He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best”: Moving Past Obstacles to Strengthen the Health Workforce in Nigeria

Carol Bales — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 15:22:24 +0000

My recent journey to Imo State, Nigeria parallels the risks and difficulties that health workers endure while working in challenging environments in developing countries—yet with persistence and commitment, they are able to create structures for delivering quality health services.

In my case, I was traveling with a group to further efforts to strengthen human resources for health (HRH) at the state level. My team set out on a journey that would ordinarily take less than two hours but instead turned into 24 hours.

Author's name:

Agbonkhese Oaiya

Publication Date:

July 2013

Learning from Each Other: Study Tour in Namibia Informs Tanzania’s Approach to Health Worker Data

Carol Bales — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 13:34:37 +0000

In Tanzania, CapacityPlus collaborates with the Tanzania Human Resource Capacity Project to strengthen the understanding and use of the Tanzania Human Resources Information System (THRIS) through human resources management training of health facility leaders and other stakeholders. CapacityPlus works in several countries to strengthen human resources information systems and implement the iHRIS software. This post was originally published on the IntraHealth International blog.

Seeing success is believing in success. That sums up the response of the delegation IntraHealth/Tanzania sent earlier this year on a study tour to learn from colleagues in Namibia about their experiences implementing a large-scale human resources information system (HRIS). What an opportune moment it was to borrow experience from Namibia, where IntraHealth is also implementing an HRIS—and one that has made decisive progress!

In both Tanzania and Namibia, long distances between towns pose challenges on financial resources and time. Like many other countries, Tanzania and Namibia historically used manual filing systems to track health worker data and therefore faced difficulties understanding and aligning their health workforces with actual needs. Because data were difficult to access, aggregate, and analyze, plans did not reflect realities.

Author's name:

Mkama Mwijarubi with Hellen Magige and Rosaline Hendricks

Publication Date:

April 2012