Asia-Pacific High Level Consultation on Health Workforce Responses to Crisis, Threats and Opportunities
Place: Sydney, Australia
Date: 20 Feb, 2006 - 23 Feb, 2006
Health systems are facing unprecedented workforce challenges threatening the equitable and effective delivery of health services. In virtually all countries, there has been chronic underinvestment in and relative neglect of the health workforce, although this workforce is a primary determinant of the performance of a health system. As a result, in many countries there has been a decline in the responsiveness of the workforce to population health needs, typified by workforce shortages, maldistribution and skill mix imbalances. To address the serious health workforce crisis new initiatives, policy options, strategic frameworks and partnerships are required. Both the World Health Report (WHR) and the World Health Day (WHD) 2006 will focus on human resources for health, including the importance of partnerships and collective responsibility and actions to address health workforce development needs of countries. The specific objectives of the consultation are:(1) to discuss and share experiences about the unique health workforce issues and challenges in the Asia-Pacific Region;(2) to identify policy directions for the future, including mechanisms that best address the major health workforce challenges;(3) to identify priority issues for global and regional action beginning with WHD 2006 on 7 April 2006 and stretching over the next 10 years; and(4) to provide input into the development of policy briefs to accompany the WHR 2006. Temporary advisers from the Western Pacific Region and the South-East Asia Region were invited to the Consultation.