Blog

Saving Mothers’ Lives

October 2010 by Amanda Puckett and Kate Tulenko
TAGS: Family Planning, Health Systems Strengthening, Health Workers, Maternal Mortality

Amanda PuckettMuch literature has celebrated the recent World Health Organization report that maternal mortality declined by a third in the past decade. Though this downward trend is remarkable, the global public health community is concerned that the declaration will shift attention away from sustaining and increasing efforts to address maternal deaths throughout the world. Also important is decreasing maternal morbidity, which creates huge costs in terms of human suffering, health care expenditures, and lost productivity.

Health systems strengthening reduces maternal mortality
The headline The Top Three Things We’re Not Doing to Save Mother’s Lives recently caught our attention. CapacityPlus’s result areas—global leadership, policy and planning, education and training, workforce effectiveness, and evaluation and knowledge-sharing—are key pieces of the health systems strengthening puzzle needed to improve health outcomes for men, women, and children. Addressing the global health worker shortage, which is most critical in countries with higher maternal mortality rates, will strengthen health systems and improve more than just maternal outcomes. Read more »

Developer to Developer: Creating a Regional Support Network at the Unconference

September 2010 by Carl Leitner
TAGS: Global Partnerships, Health Systems Strengthening, HR Information Systems, Open Source

Read about the first days of the Unconference.

Carl Leitner at the unconference, GhanaClosing the iHRIS track on Tuesday, CapacityPlus staff Dykki Settle asked how many of the participants were excited to come back tomorrow. In reply, the 25 participants—from Sierra Leone, Ghana, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Togo, and more—including human resources (HR) managers, information technology staff, and HR directors—universally and sincerely expressed their enthusiasm for the Training Workshop/Unconference for Interoperable Applications for Health Information Systems. As this is a western African regional conference, both French and English speakers were present. Many thanks to Romain Tohouri who provided excellent translation to and from French on technical areas such as HR and software development, as well as health sector terminology. Read more »

Linking the Millennium Development Goals with Human Resources for Health

September 2010 by Wilma Gormley
TAGS: Global Partnerships, Health Systems Strengthening, Health Workers, Human Resources for Health, Millennium Development Goals

Wilma GormleyAfter being escorted past more security guards than I’ve encountered in my entire life, I arrived in a conference room in the United Nations building overlooking the East River in New York City eager to hear luminaries discuss the critical link between human resources for health (HRH) and the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

I took the train from Washington, DC to NYC early this morning and watched the birth of a sunny, early fall day. I “immigrated” to NYC from Kansas after graduate school, and I still love its positive energy.

Progress in human resources for health
No Health Workforce. No Health MDGs. Is that acceptable? was a side event held at the MDG Summit this week, sponsored by the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA) along with the governments of Norway, Brazil, and Cameroon, and the Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative. President of Malawi Dr. Bingu wa Mutharika delivered the keynote address, and Dr. Mubashar Sheikh from GHWA delivered the opening and closing remarks. The panelists included ministers of health from Cameroon, Malawi, Norway, and Brazil; a DFID representative; and a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) vice president. Read more »

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