The World Health Organization has identified 57 countries, including 36 in Africa, where the current level of health workers makes it "very unlikely" that they will achieve the health-related Millennium Development Goals, internationally agreed upon goals on reversing the spread of AIDS, malaria and other major diseases and significantly reducing child and maternal mortality. A recent estimate of the funds needed to double the health workforce in sub-Saharan Africa placed the cost at an additional $2 billion in the first year, and more in ensuing years.

In Africa, people are dying unnecessarily because there are simply not enough health care workers. Health workers--nurses, doctors, pharmacists, community health workers, laboratory technicians, physician assistants, nurse assistants, mental health workers, managers, and many more—are at the core of health systems everywhere, diagnosing and treating diseases, educating and caring for patients and developing and implementing policies and strategies to combat disease. But in sub-Saharan Africa, a mere 3% of the world’s health workers struggle against all odds to treat 14% of the world's population and combat 24% of the global disease burden. The World Health Organization estimates that sub-Saharan Africa is suffering a shortage of more than 800,000 doctors, nurses and midwives and an overall shortfall of nearly 1.5 million health workers.

The causes of the shortage of health workers include HIV/AIDS, which is decimating much of the continent’s workforce. In South Africa, it is conservatively estimated that 16% of the existing health workforce are HIV+, and Malawi’s government assumes they will lose 3% of their health workforce each year to the disease. Further, there is a lack of sufficient and relevant training capacity to produce the number of health workers required; an inability to retain health workers due to poor working conditions and lack of funding for adequate salaries, sometimes due to wage caps influenced by the International Monetary Fund; and brain drain, the large-scale emigration of health care workers seeking better paying and more secure jobs in countries with greater resources, such as the United States, England and Canada.

Smart investments can expand Africa’s health workforce and ensure that the health workers have the information, medicines, and equipment they need to maintain and restore their patients’ health. Investments are needed to expand the capacity of health training institutions, provide incentives for health workers to serve in rural areas and to remain in the country, provide health workers living wages, improve health workforce management, create safe working conditions and give health workers the tools they need to do their jobs.

If the international community is committed to reaching universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care, and to significantly reducing maternal and child death, governments must show leadership in addressing the health workforce crisis. Today, you can be part of the solution.