Uganda

Determining Priority Retention Packages

In Uganda, attracting and retaining health workers in rural and underserved areas has proven difficult. Positions staffed by the Ministry of Health in many of these areas remain 50% vacant. The Ministry of Health is committed to pursuing a package of strategies to make rural postings more attractive. One important step in determining which package of strategies will be most effective is to estimate which strategies health workers themselves most prefer. To this end, the Ministry of Health, in partnership with CapacityPlus, conducted a discrete choice experiment survey among current students in health training programs as well as health workers practicing in rural districts to investigate preferences for potential attraction and retention strategies. The results constitute an important input to the policy-making process related to the identification, costing, and selection of possible retention interventions for implementation. Read more »

The International Journal of Health Planning and Management published a study conducted by the Capacity Project, the predecessor to CapacityPlus. “Satisfaction, motivation, and intent to stay among Ugandan physicians: a survey from 18 national hospitals” found that nearly half of the doctors were so dissatisfied that they would consider leaving the health sector or the country. The report concludes that policy-makers should consider interventions to remedy the quality of management, availability of equipment and supplies, facility infrastructure, workload, and professional development, which are reported as major sources of dissatisfaction.

Legacy Series 8

Describes the Capacity Project’s contributions to strengthening Christian Health Associations’ HR systems, and provides recommendations for working with the faith-based sector.

Legacy Series 6

Provides an overview of results from a qualitative evaluation study of the Capacity Project’s HRIS strengthening in Swaziland, Uganda, and Rwanda, and draws on results from a regional workshop on data-driven decision-making in Tanzania.