International initiatives
Health workforce issues and the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria: an analytical review
Long term human resources for health plans needed in Global Fund proposals
Authors:
S. Draeger; G. Gedik; M. Dal Poz
Publisher:
Human Resources for Health, 2006
This article, from Human Resources for Health, explores how the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) addresses the challenges of a health workforce bottleneck to the successful implementation of priority disease programmes. The authors consider the possibilities for investment in human resources for health (HRH) in GFATM policy and review 35 GFATM proposals from five African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania). The authors find that GFATM policy documents and guidelines encourage taking account of HRH constraints as well as interventions to address these constraints. However, the review of proposals demonstrate that countries do not take advantage of these opportunities and focus on mainly short-term, in-service training in their HRH components.
The authors highlight an apparent struggle between the GFATM’s goal to fight the three targeted diseases and the need to strengthen health systems as a prerequisite for success. They recommend that countries need to go beyond short term objectives in their GFATM proposals and link their activities to a long-term development of HRH. They suggest that countries should ensure HRH stakeholder and expert involvement in both the country coordinating mechanisms and the proposal writing groups.
[adapted from author]
