HRH Strategic Plans

This website contains brief country reports on HRH development activities in 2008 from nations belonging to the Asia-Pacific Action Alliance on HRH.

The purpose of this toolkit is to assist health professionals, health professional associations, and civil society organizations to develop advocacy strategies to address human resource and health financing issues in their countries. [from introduction]

The challenges in the health workforce are well known and clearly documented. What is not so clearly understood is how to address these issues in a comprehensive and integrated manner that will lead to solutions. This editorial presents - and invites comments on - a technical framework intended to raise awareness among donors and multisector organizations outside ministries of health and to guide planning and strategy development at the country level. [abstract]

This paper addresses an important practical challenge to staff management. We use a case study based on semi-structured interview data to explore the steps that Namibia, a country facing severe health problems that include an alarmingly high AIDS infection rate, has taken to manage its health workers. [from abstract]

This report marks the culmination of the Nursing Sector Study. The five year study consisted of two phases, and examined the nursing workforce for all three regulated nursing professions in Canada. Phase I, which concluded in December 2004, examined the state of nursing human resources in Canada. The objective of Phase II was to develop a pan-Canadian nursing human resource (HR) strategy in consultation with government and non-government stakeholders that built on the findings and recommendations presented at the completion of Phase I. [from executive summary]

This Praxis Note provides an overview of the impact of HIV/AIDS on the Malawi health care system and on the organisational capacity of Mulanje Mission Hospital. It describes the experiences and lessons learnt from a capacity building program designed to address capacity deficits and erosion caused by HIV/AIDS attrition. Less emphasis was placed on external training courses and increasing attention given to short-course inputs and distance learning. [from introduction]

This resource paper uses a simple framework to provide an analytical review of human resources for health (HRH) strategic plans that have been generated over the last few years by countries in sub-Saharan Africa that are faced with an HRH crisis. The author collected and analyzed HRH strategic plans for the following countries: Eritrea, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, South Africa, Swaziland and Zambia. The paper explores some of the key dynamics and steps in the evolution of these plans, including the plan development process and content, implementation bottlenecks and the frequency with which the plans are reviewed or evaluated.

This text presents the context and background, the methodology and some of the main results of the regional consultation on the critical challenges for human resources in health in the Americas. This consultation hopefully documents how the countries in the Americas are facing the main challenges to the development of the health workforce. The main results and suggestions by the actors consulted with regard to the role of international cooperation in the countries of the Region are presented, so that the countries and international agencies can better formulate common strategies of development and strengthening of the work force in health.

This presentation was part of a International Conference on Global Health session, “Innovations in Human Resources: Strategies to Address the Health-Care Workers Shortage.” It discusses the context, the emergency hiring plan, strategies for finding local partners, design and implementation and lessons learned of Kenya’s emergency health workforce mobilization plan.

The aims of the study were to develop a proactive and responsive system for analysing future workforce needs in pharmacy and to make recommendations on how future supply and demand could be managed. [from summary]

Ghana addresses its serious health workforce shortage and consequent issues with health service delivery through a new human resources strategic plan developed to guide scale-up from 2007 to 2011. [from abstract]

Since 2000, [National Health Service] NHS workforce policy has focused on increasing the size of the health care workforce. However, as financial investment in the NHS slows down, expanding capacity by simply increasing workforce numbers is no longer viable. Instead, alternative approaches are needed to develop a sustainable workforce that is flexible enough in its work practices to manage the complex changes facing the NHS. ‘Grow-your-own’ workforce approaches have the potential to address some of these challenges. Drawing on the experiences of London NHS organisations, this paper explores the conditions required to embed grow-your-own approaches into mainstream NHS workforce development. [publisher’s description]

This document describes a methodology for planning of human resources development in environmental and occupational health which was field-tested in Cuba, Mexico and South Africa between 1994 and 1996. In addition to outlining the rationale for such planning and the recommended steps in the planning process, the country case studies are discussed in detail with a focus on the ingredients for successful implementation in future. [author’s description]

The main aim of these guidelines is to support countries in the Human Resource Development and management process of assessing the human resource for health situation, policy and plan development with the view of achieving some level of comprehensiveness and consistency country level. The guidelines will discuss HRH processes, situation analysis, policy and plan development with reference to the overall context of national health policies and strategies. These guidelines describe how to formulate, develop, review HRH situations, policies and plans with the flexibility necessary for each country context.

These guidelines help answer what national health workforce plans should contain and how they should be developed to give them the best chance of significantly improving health outcomes and moving countries as rapidly as possible towards universal access to essential health interventions. The guidelines should serve as overarching principles that will promote the success of health workforce plans, while ensuring that they are consistent with human rights. [adapted from author]

In this paper an analytical framework is developed based on the production of health care services and the multiple determinants of health human resource requirements. Attention is focused on estimating the flow of services required to meet the needs of the population that is then translated into the required stock of providers to deliver this flow of services. [from abstract]

This document describes the number and professional categories of health professionals currently working in the public sector; projection of health human resource demand for the next three years with the estimated staff attrition, and finally, the level of construction and expansions of training institutions and financial inputs required to achieve the projected human resource demand. [from introduction]

The document aims to analyse the health system in Sudan, to identify the new challenges brought about by the new context, and on this basis to present a post-conflict strategic framework for the health sector. Chapter 3 presents an overview of the health sector. Available data on infrastructures and human resources indicate wide inequality across states in resource availability. The findings of sub-sector reviews consistently point to the overall low technical and managerial capacity at local level, the lack of recurrent funds and the high attrition of health workers, due to low salaries and difficult working conditions. [from executive summary]

The development of the Health Sector Strategic Plan is one of the steps following on from the Government of Rwanda’s decision to pursue a sector strategy process in the implementation of its Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. It provides an overarching framework for health sector support over the next five years with the principal aim of reducing poverty and improving the health status of the population. It comes at a time when the Government of Rwanda has shifted its focus towards sustainable development through the implementation of its PRSP and is embarking on the policy of decentralisation.

Strategic planning helps an organization make fundamental decisions about its human resources by taking a long-range view of what it hopes to achieve and, in broad terms, how. [author’s description]

This resource is coverage from the XVI International AIDS Conference, 2006 and contains the video and podcast from the sessions: “‘Treat, Train, Retain’: The AIDS and Health Workforce Strategy. A Partnership to Address the HRH Crisis Towards Universal Access”; “The Malawian Government’s Emergency Human Resources Programme”; “Human Resources and Public Sector Scale Up – The Way Forward”; and “Health Care for the People.”

This document is a combined Human Resources Development Plan and Human Resources Strategic Plan for the health and social welfare sector of Lesotho. The Development Plan is presented in Chapters 2 through 5, and the Strategic Plan is presented in Chapter 6. The essential difference between the two is that the HR Development Plan represents a technical assessment of the total labor supply and training requirements for the sector in the absence of any budget or production constraints. It reflects a technical assessment of what is needed and what should be produced and financed if we faced no constraints.

This report is the result of the meeting of the 47th Directing Council and 58th session of the Regional Committee in Washington DC. It is a summary of actions and proposals for a plan of action on human resources for health in the Americas submitted for the consideration of the Directing Council. This document summarizes the activities carried out to date in the countries and in the Governing Bodies. It provides an overview of the situation and the predominant trends in the Region, as well as a vision of the technical proposals and agreements for activities that are being developed. [adapted

The HRH Framework provides a pathway for governments and health managers to develop a comprehensive plan for addressing the critical shortage of health staff in HIV/AIDS and health services in general. [author’s description]

NORAD commissioned this study in order to learn how the human resource challenge currently is being addressed in Tanzania. Over the last few years, awareness has increased among policy makers in Tanzania that the country is facing a health worker crisis, and the Ministry of Health has initiated the development of a strategy to address the problem. A study of the ongoing process in Tanzania can provide useful insights for similar efforts in other countries. A second aim of the study was to identify knowledge gaps for the development of evidence-based human resource strategies in Tanzania. By structuring available evidence within a strategic policy framework, and by identifying key knowledge gaps, this study may serve as an input to the further efforts to strengthen the health workforce in Tanzania.

This article discusses the last 20 years of HRH planning in Thailand, highlights failings of these systematic approaches and makes recommendations on more appropriate strategies for meeting HRH planning needs.

This HRH policy document addresses the production and utilization of Human Resources within the Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone. It also responds to the contemporary challenges and developments including the exodus of human resources and advancement in technology. This policy intends to regulate and direct planning, production, management, utilization and monitoring of HR within the health sector. [from foreword]

In order to resolve the crisis and address the key issues the Ministry of Health has developed a Human Resources for Health Strategic Plan, in consultation with key stakeholders. The strategies and activities outlined in the Plan attempt to address the concerns of all the stakeholders consulted and to provide a framework to guide and direct interventions, investments and decision making in the planning, management and development of human resources for health. [from foreword]

The purpose of this human resource for health (HRH) plan is to provide guidance for the staffing of the health services and the training of health service personnel to the year 2020. It analyzes main issues and dimensions in HRH and proposes strategies to meet the targets for the wellbeing of the population as defined in the vision 2020 for Rwanda The plan provides staffing targets for each of the major categories of health personnel.

This presentation was part of the AIDS Law Project’s Human Resources for Health seminar, which was held to address the challenges facing the health sector. The PowerPoint argues the constitutional obligations for the South African government in the development of a reasonable HR plan and gives an outline of how that plan should be organized.

To view this presentation, you must have either Microsoft PowerPoint or download the free PowerPoint Viewer.