How Health Workers Influence Attitudes and Decisions about Family Planning

Last month, a new World Health Organization publication compared current data to data from the early 1990s on the readiness, willingness, and ability of women to use modern contraceptives in sub-Saharan Africa.

Local Solutions, Global Solidarity, and Accountability

While the Second Global Forum on Human Resources for Health was full of opportunities, it was also quite deficient in addressing the one global issue that continues to hinder progress.

What Brought Us Here Won’t Get Us There: Implementing Country-level Health Workforce Development Plans

Three years ago, we met in Kampala, Uganda, to discuss the critical needs of the global health workforce. Last week in Bangkok, we gathered to take stock of what we’ve accomplished since. Today, 86%...

Actual Needs and Donor Priorities in HIV/AIDS—The Frustrating Gap

Reading Samuel Loewenberg’s article, “Ethiopia Struggles to Make Its Voice Heard,” I thought, finally, someone is speaking out about something too many of us remain silent on—the vast gap in some countries between actual needs and donors’ perceived priorities, particularly when it comes to HIV/AIDS funding.

With Technical Support You Learn to Fish

Working on the CapacityPlus project, I’m always excited to see capacity-building in action and hear how local leaders are strengthening the health workforce. Recently I learned about a terrific story from West Africa and wanted to help share it.

Family Planning: An Essential Health Service Here and Everywhere

Wonderful to see Anu Kumar, vice president of Ipas, critiquing the bordering-on absurd contradictions between the United States government’s domestic and global policy on family planning in her recent Huffington Post article, “Does the U.S. Care about Women? That Depends on Where They Live.”

Ensuring a Legacy: The Health Workforce Component of the Global Health Initiative

When we talk about the “health workforce crisis” or “human resources for health,” this abstract language can obscure the suffering of people in need.

Key Elements of a Health Workforce Strategy for the Global Health Initiative

In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman is likely to deliver her baby without a skilled birth attendant, making her chance of dying unacceptably high.

Why the Global Health Initiative Needs a Health Workforce Strategy

Entering a one-room health clinic in Cambodia’s Pursat Province, I saw a heavily pregnant woman suffering on the dirt floor. A midwife was the lone health worker staffing this rural post.

“What about men?”

On a recent trip to Malawi, I visited the rural community of Matapila outside of the capital, Lilongwe, where a theater group was performing a series of short plays on how couples negotiate sex and make decisions about if and when to have children.