Lusaka, Zambia – The World Well being Group (WHO) Regional Workplace for Africa is convening a landmark Skilled Dialogue on Competency-Primarily based Well being Professions Training from 12–14 November 2024 in Lusaka, Zambia. This dialogue goals to handle important gaps within the coaching and schooling of Africa’s well being workforce, with the purpose of reworking well being professions schooling resulting in improved service supply, accelerating progress towards Common Well being Protection (UHC), and in the end lowering the area’s preventable deaths.
Regardless of ongoing political dedication to UHC and the adoption of a complete roadmap for the WHO African Area, important challenges stay in addressing well being safety and making certain equitable entry to high quality healthcare. Whereas the variety of well being employees within the area has tripled since 2013, reaching 5.1 million by 2022, this enlargement has not been with out its limitations. A considerable shortfall of certified well being employees, projected to succeed in 6.1 million by 2030, coupled with excessive charges of unemployment amongst educated professionals of practically 27%, additional exacerbates the challenges going through African healthcare programs.
A important difficulty is the standard of schooling within the well being career. Many nations within the area face outdated curricula, insufficient coaching infrastructure, and mismatched competencies in relation to the evolving healthcare wants of their populations. Poor high quality of care is answerable for practically 48% of the two.5 million avoidable deaths in Africa yearly, with a big proportion linked to gaps in well being employees’ coaching.
Contemplating these urgent issues, the WHO dialogue will convey collectively senior well being professionals, well being professions schooling consultants, policymakers, well being professions regulators, representatives of member states, and key companions from throughout the African Area to construct consensus on the competencies required for efficient healthcare supply, particularly within the context of competency-based schooling (CBE).
“This dialogue is predicted to catalyze a shift in direction of more practical, competency-based well being schooling programs that align with Africa’s well being priorities and meet the area’s rising demand for high quality healthcare professionals,” stated Dr Kasonde Mwinga, Director for UHC Life Course on the WHO Regional Workplace.
Why This Dialogue Issues:
The WHO’s method to Competency-Primarily based Training emphasizes outcomes-based studying that aligns schooling programmes with inhabitants well being wants. Competency-based schooling focuses on mastering competencies required for efficient healthcare supply, together with data, abilities, and attitudes. This method ensures that healthcare professionals are theoretically educated and virtually geared up to satisfy the varied and evolving wants of African populations.
“The long-term sustainable answer to the worldwide well being workforce disaster, which is characterised by widespread shortages, maldistribution, and poor working circumstances, depends on making certain that within the first place, satisfactory numbers of competent well being employees are educated and educated. This dialogue is well timed as a result of the African area has the potential to contribute to fixing this disaster not solely at nationwide but in addition regional and international ranges the place well-trained African well being employees are in massive demand.” Mentioned Professor Francis Omaswa, former Govt Director of the World Well being Workforce Alliance at WHO, Geneva.