Regional workshop for the 2nd review of progress on the decade for strengthening human resources for health in the south-east Asia region (‎2015-2024)‎:

The South-East Asia Region has a number of well-known health workforce challenges. These include shortages, unequal distribution; out-migration; adapting health workers’ education to fit rapidly changing health needs and health worker performance. These challenges matter, because health services cannot be delivered without health workers, which limits progress on universal health coverage (UHC) and the sustainable development goals (SDGs). In 2014, SEA Member States committed to a Decade of Strengthening HRH (2015–2024) in SEAR with a focus on transformative education and rural retention.

The first review in 2016 highlighted several issues: linkages between HRH strategies and service delivery and UHC; lack of attention to allied health professionals providing frontline services; the role of private sector; the need for a ‘bundle’ of interventions; the lack of simple tracer indicators to monitor the progress and maintain momentum for HRH.

All SEA Member States participated in this second review of progress, and identified challenges and priority actions for the next two years. The review involved (a) a short survey before the workshop (b) individual country posters of overall progress; (c) in depth workshop discussions on specific issues. The main conclusion in 2018 is that good, if variable, progress is being made.