Human Resources for Health

In health care, human resources typically represent more than 70 percent of costs, but this area has been traditionally neglected by donors, and its management is widely regarded as weak. In high-burden AIDS countries, human resources faces a growing crisis from increasing patient loads combined with a shrinking and often demoralized workforce.

Best practices in the field are well established in developed countries but not followed in most developing-country health systems. USAID works to help developing countries build and sustain the health workforce to improve quality, accessibility, and use of priority health services in all health areas and across health sectors.

Through research and technical assistance, USAID supports the design and implementation of quality improvement collaboratives, the strengthening of leadership, management and communication skills, the promotion of knowledge sharing, and development of workforce hiring, training, and retention plans, practices, and policies. USAID continues to build tools for evidence-based and strategic HRH decision-making and works to improve the performance of health care organizations at all levels, building the workforce’s capacity to anticipate and respond effectively to changing external environments.

Health workforce-related projects at USAID:

• The Capacity Project
• Leadership, Management and Sustainability (LMS)
• Health Care Improvement Project (HCI) project
• Private Sector Program IQC (PSP IQC)
• Private Sector Partnerships-One (PSP-One)
• Health Systems 20/20 Project (HS 20/20)
• TASC3
• The Global Health Technical Assistance Project (GHTech)