Fair treatment of health workers, effective HRH policies and strategies, good practice in international recruitment of health personnel, and more: Do you care? Do you have a story to tell? So raise your voice!

As you know, the MMI Network co-hosts the secretariat of the Health Workers for All Coalition (HW4All). We invite you to join HW4All members on 11 August for a briefing and discussion on how and why civil society can contribute to the 4th round of reporting on progress of the implementation of the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel.

The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (“WHO Global Code of Practice”, “Code”) was adopted in 2010 at the 63rd World Health Assembly. The Code seeks to strengthen the understanding and ethical management of international health personnel recruitment and migration through strengthening data, information, and international cooperation. Article 9.4 of the Code states that the WHO Secretariat may consider reports from relevant stakeholders on activities related to implementation of the WHO Global Code. In this context, an in parallel to the current 4th round of national reporting for Member States, an Independent Stakeholders Reporting Instrument is made available by WHO to facilitate reporting by “other stakeholders” including civil society organizations. This WHO consultation is open until 15 September 2021.

You will see that the reporting instrument allows civil society organizations to bring a broad range of issues related to human resources for health to the attention of the World Health Organization. This purpose of our briefing is to share why and how you can use this opportunity. We will provide more background information, walk through the reporting instrument and share civil society experiences from previous reporting rounds.

Join us to learn more and discuss about why and how to contribute.

Warm regards,
Thomas, MMI Network
Co-Secretariat Health Workers for All Coalition

Thematic fields covered by the WHO Code of Practice
and issues that can be raised via reporting instrument

Referring to the WHO Global Code of Practice, the following fields of good practice related to migration and international recruitment of health personnel are included in the 2021 Independent Stakeholders Reporting Instrument:

  1. Ethical practices exist while recruiting health personnel from source country to destination country.
  2. Migrant personnel receive fair treatment in source and destination countries.
  3. Countries have developed/ enforced strategies for health personnel development and retention to reduce the need to recruit international health personnel
  4. Health systems of both source and destination countries derive benefits from migration of health personnel through international cooperation (government to government agreement).
  5. Financial and technical support is provided to countries with critical health workforce shortages (see revisited Health Workforce Support and Safeguards list published in 2020)
  6. Data and research on health personnel (incl. e.g. health personnel information systems, migration data) is translated into effective policies and plans.
  7. Information on laws, regulation and data related to health personnel recruitment and migration in each country is shared nationally and internationally.
  8. Countries undertake efforts to collaborate with a wide range of stakeholders to implement the Code.
  9. Countries report to the WHO on the implementation of the Code.

Contributions by civil society organizations can focus on one single issue/story or several of them, and they should be documented.

 

References and resources 

4th round of reporting on Code implementation (2021)

The WHO Global Code of Practice

Recent blogs by HW4All Coalition members