A ground-breaking health investment charter, set to be launched at the forthcoming African Health Workforce Investment Forum at Windhoek in Namibia, aims to consolidate efforts to address the significant shortages in health workers.

The forum scheduled for May 6th to 8th, 2024, will bring together key stakeholders with the ambitious goal of halving Africa's critical shortage of 5.3 million health workers by 2030.

The forum expects about 170 participants, comprising policymakers from the health, education, labour/employment, and finance sectors, as well as partners from civil society financing, bilateral, and multilateral institutions.

The African Health Workforce Investment Charter will also mobilize both domestic and partner funding to strengthen and expand the continent's health workforce, with a particular focus on rural and primary healthcare settings.

WHO Regional Director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti emphasises that Africa's health workforce sector is facing a critical challenge.

He mentions that, lack of investment in training and employing health workers, along with insufficient incentives to retain them, has led to significant levels of migration, both within the continent and beyond.

“It is time to urgently invest more and in smarter ways in our health workforce. Our future depends on it,” Dr Moeti said.

To bridge these disparities, there's a need for a continent-wide rise in health-focused Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expenditure, aiming for up to 1.5%, with over half allocated specifically to health workforce investment.

Available data shows that, there's been a 13% enhancement in efficiency from 2014 to 2019, but African health systems still operate at only 77% efficiency. This indicates that about US$1 out of every US$5 spent on health is lost due to technical inefficiencies, including issues with health workforce management. These inefficiencies contribute significantly to problems such as ghost workers, absenteeism, and subpar performance.

Investing in the health workforce yields manifold benefits for both health outcomes and economies, including increased life expectancy, job creation—particularly benefiting women and young people—and progress towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals and Universal Health Coverage.

Research suggests that for every US$1 invested in health and sustaining health worker jobs, the potential return could be as high as US$9. Additionally, improvements in health have contributed significantly to global economic growth, with a 4% boost in economic growth rate observed for every additional year of life expectancy. 

The upcoming forum will gather stakeholders to evaluate progress made in strengthening the health workforce over the past decade and strategize new approaches.

Discussions will revolve around safeguarding health workforce budgets, addressing ongoing costs, and enhancing investments amidst prevailing economic challenges and debt issues.

The forum also aims to engage diverse stakeholders and partners to share experiences, achievements, and mobilize commitments, partnerships, and investments aligned with the principles of the investment charter.