Regional Meeting to Accelerate Progress Toward UHC and SDG Goals Through Nursing and Midwifery Strategy and Leadership

A robust health workforce is vital for delivering high-quality health services and achieving global health targets. Currently, over half of the health workforce in the South-East Asia region consists of nurses and midwives. Despite their crucial role, there is a significant global shortage of health professionals: 4.5 million nurses and 900,000 midwives are needed worldwide. Specifically, in South-East Asia, there was a shortage of 1.96 million nurses and 16,000 midwives as of 2021. This deficit threatens the quality of health services and hinders progress toward universal health coverage (UHC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This meeting was constructed on the momentum from the Global Partners Meeting and the Government Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officers (GCNMO) meeting held in Geneva in May 2024. It aimed to enhance health system delivery and workforce quality through strategic discussions and sharing of national, regional, and global initiatives. The year 2024 marked the final year of the Regional Strategic Directions for Strengthening Midwifery in South-East Asia (2020-2024).

Key discussions included the region’s work on documenting transitions to midwifery models of care and identifying progress, challenges and opportunities, debating on priorities for the next regional strategy, sharing of resources such as the Regional Midwifery Leadership Programme, discussion of the upcoming State of the World’s Nursing (SoWN) 2025 report and what areas to call for policy dialogues, progress made in the Global Strategic Directions of Nursing and Midwifery and discussion of policy priorities in the region to strengthen nursing and midwifery strategy and leadership to accelerate progress toward UHC and SDG goals.