KAMPALA – Today as the first Global Forum on Human Resources for Health (HRH) ends, Act Up-Paris deplored that no concrete commitments against the root problems of the crisis were made by representatives of G8 or African leaders, or the World Health Organization.
As said by Dr Francis Omaswa, director of the Global Health Workforce Alliance, and organizer of the Kampala Forum, a top-up investment of 35 billion dollars over the next 7 years would enable Africa to overcome its health workforce crisis. The G8 must pay 85% of the sum needed to get out of the HRH crisis. Indeed, according to the IMF, these 8 countries alone concentrate 85% of the wealth of all donor countries.
Likewise, the WHO hasn’t announced that it will offer to countries in search of technical support the solutions they need to access funding, for example through writing credible ambitious proposals to donors. Without this help from the WHO, these countries will fail to access financing, and will not be able to make the investments needed against the HRH crisis.
Finally, developing country representatives present at the Forum – including representatives of African leaders – have sidestepped naming openly the size of their external aid needs – even while they were warning that the size of the investments needed to repair HRH dwarves their internal means by far.
According to Brook Baker of the WHO’s Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative, the current level of health funding from donors is less than 10% of the minimum cost of achieving the health targets that the international community has set itself. Act Up-Paris deplores that the Global Forum on HRH failed to result in the concrete announcements needed. Meanwhile, thousands continue to die every day due to non-access to a motivated, skilled health worker.
