CapacityPlus Contributes to WHO Meeting on Health Workforce Observatories

CapacityPlus’s James McCaffery represented the project’s work with human resources for health (HRH) stakeholder leadership groups at the World Health Organization’s Global Meeting of HRH Observatories, held in Lisbon, Portugal from July 4-7.

Guidelines for Forming and Sustaining HRH Stakeholder Leadership GroupsThe meeting focused on the contribution of HRH observatories toward evidence-informed HRH policies and decisions. National and regional observatories are platforms for bringing together stakeholders to advance the HRH agenda by producing, sharing, and using health workforce information and evidence to inform policy decisions and support implementation.

The meeting brought together health-sector policy-makers as well as observatory leaders and stakeholders who are engaged in forming and sustaining HRH observatories in the six WHO regions. During the discussions, it became clear that the nature of the observatories—as well as their current status—differs from region to region, depending on country context and resources to support the observatory work. Given this variation, it was helpful for participants to share information about strategies for enhancing the observatories’ contributions to policy-making processes and for strengthening HRH evidence as well as health workforce information. This cross-regional, cross-country dialogue became one of the most useful aspects of the meeting, as it offered a prime opportunity for learning. As an example, one critical item for discussion involved issues of sustaining the involvement of stakeholders who are not necessarily traditional health-sector colleagues but who actually play a critical HRH role—such as the Ministry of Finance or the Ministry of Local Government.

McCaffery presented during a skill-building session designed to provide practical tips and guidance on how best to strengthen observatory operations. He shared CapacityPlus’s work to strengthen stakeholder leadership groups and distributed copies of the project’s new guidelines for those involved with stakeholder leadership groups such as HRH observatories.

While next steps vary from region to region, participants noted that capacity-building for observatory sustainability remains important, and that global partners can play a valuable role in funding and providing technical cooperation for this kind of work. Participants also concluded that regional observatories can play a key role in supporting country-level work and in rolling up country-level data and evidence to begin assembling regional themes and conclusions. For this to be effective, their work must rely to a large degree on the capability of the country observatories to produce and share data using roughly the same terminology.

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