Sub-Saharan Africa

The Capacity Project worked with governments and partners in Central America and Uganda to test approaches for strengthening supervision systems in the health sector, as one component of the Project’s workforce performance support strengthening. [from summary]

Recognizing the need to focus on health worker supply in order to achieve progress on health indicators, the Ministry of Health in Tanzania developed the Twiga Initiative to strengthen health workforce production through. This document outlines the steps taken to improve health worker training and institutions and the challenges involved. [adapted from author]

This background paper to the World Health Report 2006 discusses the fiscal and macroeconomic implications associated with scaling up health workforce capacity. While these general issues and concepts are relevant in all setting, the focus of the discussion is on low-income countries and sub-Saharan Africa in particular. [from publisher]

This background study to the World Health Report 2006 is an attempt to provide a preliminary analysis of inflow and outflow patterns of health service providers in sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis is limited only to three types of health workers—doctors, nurses and midwives—and to countries in the region with critical shortages of health workers. [from publisher]

The objective of this study was to field test tools designed to measure stigma and discrimination against patient with HIV/AIDS in the Kenyan context, focusing on facilities and providers of health services. [adapted from summary]

Identification of new ways to increase access to antiretroviral therapy in Africa is an urgent priority. We assessed whether home-based HIV care was as effective as facility-based care. [from summary]

The HIV epidemic poses significant challenges to the low income countries in sub Saharan Africa, affecting the attrition rate among health care workers, their level of motivation, and absenteeism from work. This study aimed to predict the intention to provide surgical treatment to HIV infected patients among medical- and dental students in Tanzania and Sudan using an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behaviour. [from abstract]

The objective of this study was to assess the skills of community health volunteers in diagnosing active trachoma, the world’s leading cause of preventable blindness, and distributing azithromycin treatment in the Northern Region of Ghana. [adapted from author]

Thanks to a small cadre of village volunteers, trained in basic health-care concepts, western Uganda is beginning to see some promising improvements in child health. [from author]

This report outlines a rapid descriptive assessment to gain an initial understanding of the management workforce for service delivery in Ethipia, Ghana and Tanzania and to test selected criteria for assessing managers as part of the health workforce. [adapted from summary]

In rural settings, the promotion of household and community health practices through community health workers (CHWs) is among the key strategies to improve child health. The objective of this study was to assess the performance of CHWs in the promotion of basic child health services in rural Mali. [from abstract]

This commentary paper highlights changing patterns of outward migration of Zambian nurses. The aim is to discuss these pattern changes in the light of policy developments in Zambia and in receiving countries. [from abstract]

This paper presents the experiences, impact and lessons of the innovative approach of working with traditional healers in HIV and TB prevention and control programmes, especially at the primary health care level. [from abstract]

The Kenya Treatment Access Movement has mobilized healthcare workers from across the country to facilitate formation of a national network for HIV-positive healthcare workers. The network’s mission is to act as an advocate for all healthcare workers living with or affected by HIV, helping to reduce stigma and discrimination, increase their visibility, and expand access to treatment, care, and support services. [from author]

This report presents research findings on the potential for making contraceptives, and in particular injectable contraceptives, widely available through using a community-based distribution approach which would expand the cadre of providers authorized to provide contraceptives to include health surveillance assistants and community-based distribution agents. [adapted from summary]

This draft policy framework is intended to provide an effective and efficient occupational workforce to support a comprehensive multidisciplinary health care service; strengthen partnerships between government, civil society and communities to consolidate, manage and focus the services offered by Community Care Workers; and delineate strategies that address systemic change within the complex systems both within the public sector and its partners. [from introduction]

Lower-income countries face severe health worker shortages. Recent evidence suggests that this problem can be mitigated by task-shifting or delegation of aspects of health care to less specialized health workers. We estimated the potential impact of task shifting on costs of antiretroviral therapy and physician supply in Uganda. [from abstract]

This study was designed to document the role and experience of health professionals with significant responsibility for human resource management (HRM); identify the challenges that these health professionals face; identify additional skills and knowledge needed by these health professionals to address HRM challenges; solicit recommendations for changes in pre-service and in-service HRM training. [from summary]

This paper provides a participant-observer perspective of the evolution of community health workers from vertical and isolated activities for TB, HIV and other specific diseases to an integrated community health team approach for tackling the main disease burden in a rural district of Mozambique. [from introduction]

This presentation dicusses the import of task shifting to providing health care and AIDS treatment programs to low-resource countries in Africa using Mozambique as an example.

This evaluation focused on the relevance of the health sector strategic and implementation plans to the achievement of the the MDGs in health; the extent of progress and achievements in the health sector reform process; achievements in improving acces, service quality and health outcomes; and changes in partnership activities. Section 8 examines how effectively the health sector has dealt with important issues in HRH during the evaluation period. [adapted from author]

The aim of this study was to provide a baseline assessment in PMTCT in the traditional health sector to determine the views of women who have used the services of traditional practitioners before, during and/or after pregnancy; and to conduct formative research with traditional health practitioners (THPs), i.e. herbalists, diviners and traditional birth attendants on HIV, pregnancy care, delivery and infant care. [adapted from abstract]

In Lesotho, as in many other countries, the HIV and AIDS care burden falls on the shoulders of women and girls in unpaid, invisible household and community work. This gender inequity in HRH needs to be addressed to ensure fair and sustainable responses to the need for home and community-based HIV/AIDS care and support. The Capacity Project addressed these issues through a study of men as providers of HIV/AIDS care and support. [from author]

As the Capacity Project has worked to strengthen HRH systems to implement quality health programs in developing countries, it has systematically focused on how differences and inequalities affect women’s and men’s opportunities for education, training and occupational choice. In Rwanda, the Project helped the government follow through on its national policy commitments to gender equality by conducting a study of workplace violence and gender discrimination as barriers to workforce participation. [from author]

The Capacity Project has made specific technical contributions to shape and advance the human resources management professional development agenda at the global, regional and country level since 2005. This brief describes the rationale, process, methodology and some of the results of key approaches that the Project and its collaborating partners developed and implemented in sub-Saharan Africa. [from author]

The Capacity Project offered technical support to Rwanda’s Ministry of Health to develop the capacity of the district hospital clinical workforce in order to expand client access to a full range of quality FP methods. These included long-acting and permanent methods and vasectomy in particular. [from author]

These yearly reports reflect the key milestones achieved by the department in its quest to improve the health status of South Africans, through the delivery of accessible, caring and good quality services. Most importantly, the report also reflects the department’s limitations and constraints encountered during the reporting period, which will have to be addressed going forward. [from foreword]

The objective of this study was to analyse in what way HRH recruitment, deployment and retention at the district level are influenced by external funding; and to what extent this is in line with national and district policies and strategies. [from abstract]

Anecdotal evidence suggests that there is severe competition for personnel and staff time between various health programmes and between public and private providers. Such competition is reinforced by the vertical nature of various funding mechanisms supported by bilateral donors, international NGOs and global initiatives. The objective of this study was to analyse in what way HRH recruitment, deployment and retention at the district level are influenced by externally funded programmes. [from summary]

The author outlines the results of the Emergency Hiring Plan which was designed to quickly hire and train large numbers of qualified health workers in Kenya and deploy them where they are most needed. [adapted from author]