Intended for healthcare professionals

  1. News & Views
  2. Improving the...
  3. Improving the resilience and workforce of health systems for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health
Analysis Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health

Improving the resilience and workforce of health systems for women’s, children’s, and adolescents’ health

BMJ 2015; 351 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h4148 (Published 14 September 2015) Cite this as: BMJ 2015;351:h4148

Read the full collection
  1. James Campbell, executive director, Global Health Workforce Alliance, director, health workforce1,
  2. Giorgio Cometto, technical officer, Global Health Workforce Alliance1,
  3. Kumanan Rasanathan, senior health specialist2,
  4. Edward Kelley, director, Service Delivery and Safety1,
  5. Shamsuzzoha Syed, technical officer, Service Delivery and Safety1,
  6. Pascal Zurn, technical officer, Health Systems Evidence and Policy3,
  7. Luc de Bernis, senior maternal health adviser4,
  8. Zoe Matthews, consultant4,
  9. David Benton, chief executive officer5,
  10. Odile Frank, health and social services officer6,
  11. Andrea Nove, senior research associate7
  1. 1World Health Organization, Avenue Appia 20, 1207, Geneva, Switzerland
  2. 2Unicef, 3 United Nations Plaza, New York, USA
  3. 3Country Office in India, WHO, Indraprastha Estate, New Delhi, India
  4. 4United Nations Population Fund, New York, USA
  5. 5International Council of Nurses, 3 Place Jean-Marteau, 1201, Geneva, Switzerland
  6. 6Public Services International, BP 9, 01211 Ferney-Voltaire, CEDEX, FRANCE
  7. 7ICS Integrare, Barcelona, Spain
  1. Correspondence to: J Campbell campbellj{at}who.int

To achieve the sustainable development goals related to maternal, child, and adolescent health, countries need to integrate targeted interventions within their national health strategies and leverage them into financing, workforce, and monitoring capacity across the system, say James Campbell and colleagues.

The United Nations’ first Every Woman Every Child strategy, Global Strategy for Women’s and Children’s Health, provided an impetus “to improve the health of hundreds of millions of women and children around the world and, in so doing, to improve the lives of all people.”1 The updated Global Strategy for Women’s, Children’s, and Adolescents’ Health calls for an even more ambitious agenda of expanding equitable coverage to a broader range of reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health services, as integral to the 2030 targets of the sustainable development goals.2

These goals cannot be realised by efforts that tackle only specific parts of the global strategy. Instead, an integrated approach is required, to include the complementary functions of stewardship, financing, workforce, supply chain, information systems, and service delivery.3 In this paper we highlight two core aspects that require urgent attention—building the resilience of health systems and ensuring sufficient human resources.

Methods

Our analysis is informed by lessons from countries that have made the most rapid progress on millennium development goals 4 (to reduce child mortality rates), 5 (to improve maternal health), and 6 (to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases) since 2000. In addition, we draw on the experiences of several countries in the recent outbreak of Ebola virus disease, new evidence on the workforce requirements for achieving universal health coverage,4 5 and the forthcoming WHO Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 20306 and WHO Global Strategy on People Centred and Integrated Health Care Services,7 which describe innovative ways to deliver …

View Full Text
Back to top