The Labor Market for Health Workers in Africa : New Look at the Crisis

Health systems in Sub-Saharan Africa have changed profoundly over the last 20 years. The economic crisis of the 1980s and 1990s rattled public health care systems, which were largely holdovers from the colonial and postcolonial eras. The later wave of structural adjustments and public sector reforms wrought further change. As African economies opened to market based approaches, the private sector became a sizable source of health care service. Today about half the health expenditures in Africa are private, and private providers play a major role in the delivery of outpatient services. This is draws on the lessons, knowledge, and data gathered by the World Bank's Africa Region Human Resources for Health Program. For the first time, the various complexities of Human Resources for Health (HRH) labor markets are addressed comprehensively in one volume. Given the increasing demand in countries for strong health workforces that can help achieve universal health coverage; we hope this book will be beneficial to researchers, policy makers, and practitioners who are trying to develop evidence-based HRH interventions to achieve this end.