This book was produced to support the development of Ghana s Human Resources for Health (HRH) Strategy. It discusses the current picture on stock, distribution and performance of HRH, evidence based policy options, as well as fiscal and political challenges to be taken into consideration in developing policies or programs on HRH.
Despite some recent successes in Ghana, further improvements in health outcomes are in part hampered by the lack of skilled service providers, or human resources for health (HRH), particularly in rural areas, where critical health services are needed most. To address the lack of information and guide the development of policies and programs on HRH, Toward Interventions in Human Resources for Health in Ghana: Evidence for Health Workforce Planning and Results aims to paint a comprehensive picture of HRH, consolidating new and existing evidence on the stock, distribution, and performance of h ealth workers to focus on the what, as in What is the situation on HRH? and the how, as in How is this situation explained? The book highlights new evidence on some of the underlying determinants affecting the stock, distribution, and performance of health workers in Ghana, including health worker production and attrition, capacity to manage HRH, the capacity of health training institutions, and health worker compensation. Policy options on HRH are also discussed, as is the fi scal and political environment needed to develop and implement such interventions. The data and findings presented in this book are the result of extended and close collaboration between the Ghana Technical Working Group on HRH (led by the Ministry of Health) and the World Bank's Africa Region Technical Team on HRH. The information in this book will provide a better basis for Ghanaian decision makers and external partners to have a dialogue on HRH and related policies. More broadly, Toward Interventions in Human Resources for Health in Ghana: Evidence for Health Workforce Planning and Results will be of interest to all those working to improve human resources for health in Africa and beyond.
Starting with more general issues of healthcare policy and governance in a global perspective and using the lens of national case studies of healthcare reform, this handbook addresses key themes in the debates over changing healthcare policy.
This volume analyzes Ghana s health system performance and highlights the range of policy options needed to improve health system performance and health outcomes.
Achieving universal health care requires understanding health labor markets dynamics to overcome constaints in human resources for health. This book helps to understand how key elements in health labor markets interact and how these interactions can help or hinder significant progress in health care coverage.
This volume analyzes Ghana s National Health Insurance Scheme and highlights the range of policy options needed to assure its financially sustainable transition to universal coverage.
As Africa's population ages, the inadequacy of kin care becomes more visible. In Ghana, older people and their allies are developing fragile initiatives and programs beyond the norm of kin care. Changes in Care examines aging in Ghana as a way of understanding the unevenness of social change more widely.
Sub-Saharan Africa has only 12 percent of the global population, yet this region accounts for 50 percent of child deaths, more than 60 percent of maternal deaths, 85 percent of malaria cases, and close to 67 percent of people living with HIV. Sub-Saharan Africa, however, has the lowest number of health workers in the world-significantly fewer than in South Asia, which is at a comparable level of economic development. The Labor Market for Health Workers in Africa uses the analytical tools of labor markets to examine the human resource crisis in health from an economic perspective. Africa's labor markets are complex, with resources coming from governments, donors, the private sector, and households. Low numbers of health workers and poor understanding of labor market dynamics are major impediments to improving health service delivery. Yet some countries in the region have developed innovative solutions with new approaches to creating a robust health workforce that can respond to the continent's health challenges. As Africa grows economically, the invaluable lessons in this book can help build tomorrow's African health systems.
In this analysis of the global workforce, the Joint Learning Initiative, a consortium of more than 100 health leaders, proposes that mobilization and strengthening of human resources for health, neglected yet critical, is central to combating health crises in some of the world's poorest countries and for building sustainable health systems everywhere. Worker shortage, skill mix imbalance, maldistribution, negative work environments, and weak knowledge bases challenge nearly all countries. Especially in the poorest countries, the workforce is under assault by a triple threat of HIV/AIDS, out-migration, and inadequate investment. Effective country strategies should be launched and backed by international reinforcement. These include urgently mobilizing one million more health workers for Africa, and focusing efforts on the unremunerated community-level health workers, the majority of whom are women. Ultimately, the crisis in human resources is a shared problem requiring shared responsibility for cooperative action. Alliances for action are recommended to strengthen the performance of all actors while expanding space and energy for new ones.
