10 Aug HRH2030 Director’s Digest: August 2021
August 2021: Youth in Health Careers, Data, Women in Community Health, and more!
Dear Colleagues,
This week, we observe International Youth Day, the United Nations’ annual commemoration to draw attention to youth-focused issues. We have been talking about the potential of youth in health careers for quite a while, and so I’m pleased to (re)share here our brief published this spring, Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Institutions: Best Practices and Opportunities to Increase Youth Employment in Health. Just last month, we were reminded by Dr. Caline Mattar, head of the Global Health Workforce Network Youth Hub, that young people aren’t only the health workforce of the future—they’re today’s health workforce as well! Read more about youth, as well as some other key areas of investment for the health workforce of the future, in our new blog.
Data continues to play a pivotal role in supporting the health workforce. I’m excited to share several new stories about our work related to data. The first, Harnessing Health Worker Data in Indonesia, delves into how Indonesia has made substantial investments in its human resource information system over the past few years, and how these investments have supported its COVID-19 response. As you may already know, this is work that HRH2030 has been contributing to, and for which we—and USAID Indonesia—were recognized with a USAID Digital Development Award. The second story focuses on a recent training we supported jointly with USAID and the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund, at a time when COVID-19 is underscoring the need for evidence-based responses to HRH challenges. Learn more about our effort to enhance Pacific Island health workers’ capacity in health workforce management and data systems. The final story linked to data highlights a recent initiative from our Capacity Building for Malaria (CBM) activity. Earlier this year, our CBM embedded advisors from Chad accompanied their National Malaria Control Program (NMCP) colleagues to Togo, for a learning exchange facilitated by our CBM and NMCP colleagues in Togo. Among the highlights of this event: a visit to Togo’s sentinel surveillance network, which is responsible for collecting quality data to ensure targeted malaria interventions. Here’s a look at some of what these two teams shared.
Sharing experiences is the theme of our newly published blog from the Institutionalizing Community Health Conference 2021. Convened by UNICEF in collaboration with USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Community Health Roadmap and the Community Health Community of Practice (CH-CoP), this event was a platform for sharing countries’ progress on urgent priorities for advancing primary health care at the community level. We were pleased to support the Women’s Storytelling Salon in organizing a session with three outstanding women leaders from Liberia and Zambia, who shared their personal journeys to becoming passionate leaders and advocates for primary care at the community level. Our new blog includes video clips from this session.
Primary care at the community level – a key step in achieving universal health coverage – will only be possible if countries are able to maximize their health workforce to meet the ever-evolving challenges that health systems face. I leave you with this two-part series, How Can We Optimize the Health Workforce During COVD-19 and Beyond? My co-author, Julie Becker, Chemonics’ senior vice president of our global health division, and I have provided six approaches for sustainable investment to optimize health workers’ performance and, in the long run, strengthen health systems.
Finally, we’ve been noting for months now that the HRH2030 program is coming to its conclusion. While we will be wrapping up a few activities in the fall, the September issue of HRH2030 Highlights will be our last one. We’ll be sending our final newsletter on Wednesday, September 8, so please check your inbox then. We look forward to sharing a few final thoughts on human resources for health!
Best,
Wanda Jaskiewicz
Project Director, HRH2030