OUR MISSION

Urging U.S. investment in frontline health workers.

WHO WE ARE

The new Frontline Health Workers Coalition is a dynamic and influential coalition working together to urge greater and more strategic U.S. investment in frontline health workers in the developing world as the most cost-effective way to save lives and foster a healthier, safer and more prosperous world.

OUR VISION

That everyone has access to basic preventative and curative health care by skilled, supported and motivated frontline health workers.

OUR GOAL

The World Health Organization estimates a shortage of at least one million frontline health workers. As its contribution toward closing this shortfall, the Coalition is urging the U.S. government to set a goal to increase the number of frontline health workers trained and supported with U.S. assistance to 250,000 by 2015 and to improve the capacity and impact of existing frontline health workers. This goal can be met in partnership with the American corporate sector and nongovernmental organizations who have a vested interest in a healthy workforce and healthy communities.

The health workforce crisis is largely recognized as a critical obstacle to achieving the health goals of the United States. The Coalition encourages the U.S. government to help train and deploy these frontline health workers as part of a comprehensive health workforce strengthening strategy, and to invest in countries that have severe health worker shortages and in which the U.S. is already making a substantial investment to improve health through its Global Health Initiative. The absolute expansion of the frontline health workforce should be accompanied by investments in health school capacity, health worker remuneration and retention, health worker productivity, and strategic review of policy, skills and supply gaps that constrain their effectiveness.

WHY IT MATTERS

Frontline health workers are the first and often the only link to health care for millions of people living in the developing world. They are the most immediate and cost-effective way to save lives and improve health. This is not only the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do. America’s security and prosperity demand appropriate engagement in development issues around the world. Investments in frontline health workers will save lives in the developing world, slow rapid population growth, and support American jobs by expanding exports, fostering stability and helping to open markets overseas to U.S. products and services.

Frontline health workers are also key to achieving the health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) aimed at reducing deaths to mothers and children, and reversing the incidence of AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other diseases. All 192 U.N. member states, including the United States, have agreed to achieve the eight MDGs by the year 2015 – representing a movement by the international community to make investments in development more results-oriented by setting specific, measurable objectives and a timeline for achieving them.

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