Priority Health Areas / HIV/AIDS

Health workforce shortages are a significant bottleneck to providing antiretroviral therapy (ART) to all those who need it. Much of the Capacity Project’s work focused on improving workforce productivity and numbers, and thus had particular relevance and urgency in the response to HIV. The challenge of delivering ART to the large number of people requiring treatment in sub-Saharan Africa has highlighted the real danger of health workforce shortages on the continent. Many current initiatives to scale up the workforce and improve productivity prioritize the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS as one important and specific goal. For this reason, the Project’s activities in workforce strengthening had particular relevance to HIV service delivery, and many of the Project’s activities had a measurable impact in this area.

Major results areas included the Kenya Emergency Hiring Plan, performance support in Central America, clinical service delivery in Rwanda and Namibia and building systems for orphans and vulnerable children.

Lessons learned:

1. Implementing the Kenya Emergency Hiring Plan resulted in enhanced facilities services and greater use.
2. Use of approved performance standards in baseline and regular assessments of decentralized HIV services can strengthen the quality and accessibility of HIV services.
3. Mobile district physicians can increase access to HIV prevention, care and treatment in rural settings.
4. Working at the district level is vital in addressing health issues, such as HIV, in decentralized settings.
5. HRH successes in addressing HIV serve as important models for other emerging epidemics and pandemics.

Learn more about the Project's HIV/AIDS programming results.

Related resources:

• Assessing the Human Resource Capacity for Implementation of the National Plan of Action for Orphans and Vulnerable Children: Process Description and Tool Library
• "Better Service for the Client and the Community": Strengthening HIV Training in Belize
• Bridging the Gaps: Improving Decentralized HIV Services in Panama
• Developing Hope in Life: Mothers' Support Groups for Living Positively in Ethiopia
• Evaluation of a Rapid Workforce Expansion Strategy: The Kenya Emergency Hiring Plan
• Guidelines for Occupational Safety and Health, Including HIV in the Health Services Sector
• HIV Care for Health Workers: Perceptions and Needs
• “I Can Make a Difference in One’s Family Life”: Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV in Ethiopia
• Implementation of Performance Support Approaches in Central America and Uganda
• Kenya’s Health Care Crisis: Mobilizing the Workforce in a New Way
• Making an Impact: Transforming Service at a Remote Hospital in Kenya
• Mid-Term Evaluation of the Kenya Emergency Hiring Plan
• Moving from Planning to Strategic Action: Strengthening Swaziland’s Grant from the Global Fund
• Teaming Up in Tanzania: Supporting the National Response to HIV
• Working from the Inside: Mainstreaming HIV into Government Planning in Kenya
• “Yielding Very Positive Results”: Improving Decentralized HIV Services in Costa Rica

See other areas in Priority Health Areas: Family Planning/Reproductive Health; Tuberculosis