Valuing Health Workers- Implementing sustainable interventions to improve health worker motivation

A useful collation of existing research on responses to Malawi’s health worker crisis, with recommendations on non-financial incentives to address recruitment, retention and quality of care issues. There is a particular focus on the importance of Health Surveillance Assistants, who, it is recommended, become regular health workers. This report was developed as part of VSO's research and advocacy programme 'Valuing Health Workers' which seeks to address health worker shortages in developing countries. In Malawi this work took place against the background of the Emergency Human Resources Programme (EHRP). The report reviews existing research and goes on to make recommendations on non-financial incentives for retention of health workers: recognition of HSAs as key health workers, performance based monitoring systems at district level, on-the-job training, partnership between central and district level government and civil society.