Voices from the Capacity Project

In countries where available human resources for health (HRH) are insufficient to meet the needs, it is increasingly vital that health workers are supported to do their jobs effectively and efficiently.

“First of all, if you want to improve health then you have to look at what is existing [in terms of HRH] and identify if, for example, the health workers have the skills needed,” says Khamis Khamis, Head of the Human Resource Division at the Zanzibar Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in Tanzania. “Do they have the appropriate equipment and environment, and are they working as they’re supposed to, in terms of productivity?”

Health care worker productivity is a key ingredient of quality health services. The benefits of addressing productivity include greater efficiency, reduced workload intensity, increased worker satisfaction and a higher quality of care. In Zanzibar, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is committed to developing interventions that improve productivity and address the major health challenges. In partnership with the Ministry, the Capacity Project is carrying out an initiative to investigate productivity in the health sector and select, implement and evaluate interventions to improve efficiency.

The average number of visits each month to the Capacity Project’s HRH Global Resource Center website increased by 790% during Year 3 of the Project, jumping from 3,509 in the first quarter to 27,723 in the fourth quarter.