The third Global Forum on Human Resources for Health (HRH) took place in Recife, Brazil on 10-13 November. A number of prominent civil society organisations including EPHA and its member organisation Wemos have signed a Joint Statement, ”No Progress towards Universal Health without Health Workers” as a commitment to improve accountability for tackling the global HRH crisis.
The health workforce crisis remains a core barrier to achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as the global shortage persists. Earlier commitments to increase domestic resources or external aid, as well as the implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, remain largely unfulfilled.
Too little investment has been targeted at the recurrent costs of health workforce development, for instance on salaries, education and social protection measures for health workers. The inequitable distribution of
health workers through increased mobility and migration within and between countries adversely affects access to health. Health workers and a robust health system are essential for universal health coverage (UHC), and realizing the right to health through universal health systems.
Through a number of actions, the signatories of the Joint Statement express their commitment to contribute to:
- Strengthening the advocacy of health workers and civil society for improved infrastructure, support and working conditions;
- Catalysing a strong movement for health workers; and
- Ensuring accountable HRH systems and national ad global levels
and they pledge to hold donors, governments and multilateral actors accountable to a number of crucial actions to tackle the HRH crisis.
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– Joint Statement] [Civil Society Commitment on Health Workers
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The objectives of the 3rd Global Forum Forum objectives included the following:
1) Elicit and announce new tangible HRH commitments;
2) Update the HRH agenda to make it relevant to the current global health policy discourse including:
- a push to accelerate progress towards attaining the MDGs
- promoting universal health coverage
- identifying post-2015 health development priorities
