Building Strategic Partnerships in Education and Health in Africa: Consultative Meeting on Improving Collaboration Between Health Professionals, Governments, and other Stakeholders in Human Resources for Health Development

The first meeting ever held in Africa on the crisis facing the health workforce in which a large number of stakeholders met face-to-face to exchange views and initiate processes that could lead to development of solutions. The meeting endorsed the relevance of education and training of health professionals to the health needs of the population served, the importance of forging new partnerships between the health and education sectors, the urgency of facilitating retention and optimal utilization of the health workforce in the African work environment, recognition of the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic on the health workforce, and the impact of globalization. The phrase “brain drain” was widely used at the meeting, with reference to the migration of trained African health professionals to other countries, as well as out of the health sector. An understanding was reached that participants would take the lead in initiating the development of country-specific action plans. At the international level, WHO, the World Bank and UNESCO agreed to establish an African health human resource development task force. [author’s description]