Strategic planning for development of human resources for health in the Region

Abstract

Due to the growing burden of chronic diseases during the last two decades which require a continuum of care, especially community-based care, new pressures have emerged on the health workforce in Member States of the South-East Asia Region.All SEAR Member States face several common health-workforce-related problems and issues, which led the Regional Office to develop a strategic plan for health workforce development. This Regional Strategic Plan for Health Workforce Development in SEAR identified 10 strategic areas which mainly included scaling up health workforce production, knowledge generation and management and capacity building on health workforce management.The Member States have been encouraged to develop their own strategic plans for which technical support is being provided to plan their health workforce strategies and strengthen regional and national training capacities. Regional partnerships and networks have been established. Regional health workforce information has been strengthened through the development of a Regional HRH Observatory with HWF database. The issue of international migration of health workforce is being addressed. In addition teaching of public health and community-based health workforce is also being strengthened in SEAR Member States.Tangible results have been achieved through strategic planning for development of human resources for health in the Region.The attached working paper (‎Doc. SEA/RC63/8)‎ is submitted to the High-Level Preparatory (‎HLP)‎ Meeting for its review and recommendations. The recommendations made by the HLP Meeting will be submitted to the Sixty-third Session of the Regional Committee for its consideration.