The Government of Zimbabwe has launched the Health Workforce Strategy (2023-2030) to transform the country’s human resources for health capacity to ensure the highest quality of life for all Zimbabweans by 2030. This comprehensive strategy addresses critical gaps in the health workforce and is set to be the foundation for a sustainable healthcare system. In conjunction with this strategy, the Government has signed the Health Workforce Compact (2024-2026), underscoring a commitment to accelerate investments in health workforce development and to enhance collaboration across sectors.
Zimbabwe is a pacesetter country in operationalizing the principles of the Africa Health Workforce Investment Charter which admonishes countries to use health labour market evidence to prioritise health workforce investments through national dialogues and formalize the commitments through investment compacts.
The HSC Chairperson Dr Vincent Hungwe said close to US$163 billion is required to implement this strategy.
“The government of Zimbabwe, in collaboration with our partners, has identified key areas for critical investment to transform our health workforce. And between 2024 and 2026, we need an investment of US$ 1.63 billion to jumpstart this crucial journey.
“In addition to the government’s current spending on human resources for health, an extra US$475 million is needed to achieve the goals set out in the investment compact for the years 2024 to 2026,” he said.
He added that investing in the health workforce has a ripple effect of improving the overall workforce and other factors of the economy.
“Apart from improving the effectiveness of the health workforce, the strategy has a multiplier effect on other sectors of the economy.
“As empowered health workers who directly contribute in meeting health needs of other workers, thereby fostering a healthy workforce for the nation, my ministry is committed to driving skills development in the health sector and in the nation at large.
“I commend my work to the fact that participation of all stakeholders is important for the skills revolution to be successful,” he said.
“The Signing of the Zimbabwe Health Workforce Investment Compact is a powerful demonstration of Zimbabwe’s commitment to invest in improving the workforce situation in the country. It is a bold step that will contribute to improving the health of the Zimbabwean people.” Said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti WHO Regional Director for Africa.
“I encourage all partners to align with the Compact to amplify our collective impact, tackle infant mortality and infectious diseases, and provide essential services, like vaccinations, to all Zimbabweans,” she added.
The Zimbabwe Health Workforce Strategy outlines five strategic areas that will guide the country’s efforts to strengthen its health workforce: planning and financing; production, training and development; deployment, utilization and governance; retention and migration management as well as monitoring and evaluation, ICT and research.
To enhance the financial sustainability of the health workforce, the strategy aims to improve stakeholder involvement in funding initiatives and increase public sector health workforce spending from $9 per capita to at least $32 per capita by 2030. It also seeks to align investments among government, private sector, and development partners to ensure a sustainable health workforce.
Another critical component of the strategy is training, with the country planning to align health worker training programmes with the needs of the sector and increase annual training outputs from 3,334 in 2022 to at least 7,000 by 2030. Additionally, the strategy emphasizes the need to create 32,000 new health workforce positions, progressively integrate community health workers, foster geographical equity in workforce distribution, and strengthen governance and leadership within the health sector.
To address the issue of health worker retention, the strategy seeks to reduce the attrition rate of health workers by 50% and progressively increase their remuneration. Moreover, efforts will be made to raise health worker satisfaction levels to at least 80% by 2030, alongside managing ethical emigration to ensure experienced health workers remain within the country.
To support these strategic areas, the Health Workforce Investment Compact, developed jointly by the Government and development partners with technical support from the World Health Organization (WHO), outlines critical investment areas necessary to transform the health workforce. The compact aims to accelerate the country’s aspiration of attaining Universal Health Coverage (UHC) service coverage to at least 80 index points and ensure the availability of a resilient, motivated, and fit-for-purpose health workforce.
To realize these ambitious goals, a total investment of US$1.63 billion is needed between 2024 and 2026. An additional US$475 million is required to meet the objectives outlined in the investment compact.
“Through this compact, the Government commits to allocating 75% of the required resources ensuring that these funds are ring-fenced, thereby inviting collaborations from development partners and the private sector,” noted Dr Douglas Mombeshora, Honourable Minister of Health and Child Care.
Zimbabwe’s healthcare system has been facing challenges in critical areas of human resources for health (HRH), such as quantity, size, absorption of health workers, geographic and health facility level distribution of health workers, skill mix and health workforce management capacity. With an annual average population growth of 1.5% and a high burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, the rising demand for healthcare services has put pressure on the available health workforce.
Officiating the launch, Health and Child Care Minister Dr Douglas Mombeshora said the human resources for health are critical for the attainment of Universal Health Coverage as the country eyes an Upper Middle-Income status by 2030.
The Health Minister said realising the challenges bedevilling the health labour force, the Health Service Commission (HSC) alongside technical partners such as the World Health Organization conducted a health labour market analysis.
Subsequently, the HSC and MOHCC along with key line Ministries, departments, and agencies with technical assistance from the WHO and partners developed an evidenced based health workforce strategy2023 to 2030 and the Health workforce investment plan for the period 2024 and 2026.
“The policies and programmes recommended in this strategy emanate from the broader vision of improving health outcomes and attaining Universal Health Coverage Index of 80 as we pursue the National Vision and goals,” he said.
The Minister of Skills Audit and Development Professor Paul Mavima commended the Health Ministry in coming up with this strategy. “And there’s no doubt that we, especially the developing countries, we have, as a matter of policy primacy, we need to focus on our education and health sectors, and everything else will follow. “It is therefore my pleasure to applaud the Ministry of Health and Child Care for the work that they’ve done in spearheading the formulation of these two documents and policy instruments. “The concerted efforts of all stakeholders in developing these key documents for the health sector is an indication of government and stakeholder commitment in improving the effectiveness of our health system,” he said.