The largest single investment needed to achieve universal health coverage and the health Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) is in the workforce. Working for Health enables countries to optimize, build and strengthen the health and care workforce to accelerate progress towards the SDGs by 2030.   

The joint International Labour Organization (ILO), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and World Health Organization partnership was established in 2017 as a UN-wide collaboration on the global health workforce investment and action agenda. It leverages inter-sectoral cooperation and coordination between the finance, labour, education, health, social and foreign affairs sectors, and with health employers' and workers' organizations, professional associations, and other key stakeholders, including civil society, on priority policy issues.  

Working for Health takes action to deliver essential services for all communities, improve quality of care, and build robust health systems. Working for Health and its Multi-Partner Trust Fund helps deliver sustained, country-driven action and investment, through intensified technical assistance and catalytic funding.  

Since 2018, Working for Health supported 42 countries and two regional economic zones: the Southern African Development Community and the West African Economic and Monetary Union to effectively address pressing policy issues and help leverage domestic and donor financing and partnerships to drive implementation, sustainability, and impact. It’s delivered on priority global work of WHO-ILO-OECD on workforce data and analytics, migration, and skills.  

At the Seventy-fifth World Health Assembly in May 2022, Resolution 75.17: Human resources for health, was co-sponsored by over 100 Member States, calling for the adoption and implementation of the Working for Health 2022–2030 Action Plan and utilization of the related Global Health and Care Worker Compact. Working for Health supports Member States and partners to deliver these multi-sectoral and multi-SDG recommendations and global agenda through the combined strengths of the three implementing agencies.