The West African Health Organisation (WAHO) has called on ECOWAS member states to strengthen its health workforce, improve training, distribution and retention of professionals to address shortages and ensure quality healthcare delivery across the region.
WAHO Director-General, Prof. Palokinam Pitche, made the call in Abuja on Monday during the 11th Statutory Meeting of the Regional Council for Health Professionals Education in the ECOWAS Region.
Pitche said qualified health professionals were central to functional health systems, noting that shortages and unequal distribution continued to constrain access to quality healthcare across member states.
He said countries must urgently address the human resources crisis, warning that failure to do so could undermine efforts to achieve Universal Health Coverage and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The WAHO director-general identified inadequate training programmes, limited professional development, inter-professional conflicts and poor retention strategies among challenges affecting the effective utilisation of health personnel.
He said political, social and economic crises had further weakened health workforce management, making it difficult for countries to provide equitable healthcare services, particularly to vulnerable populations.
Pitche said well-trained, motivated and equitably distributed health workers were essential for building resilient health systems and improving healthcare access across the West African sub-region.
He explained that regional cooperation in training, professional mobility, knowledge exchange, capacity development and joint research would strengthen healthcare delivery and promote integration among ECOWAS member states.
The director-general said the meeting was expected to finalise proposals for the recognition and equivalence of health professionals’ diplomas and certificates across the WAHO region.
He added that participants would also conclude a regional action plan for training health professionals in priority areas to address workforce gaps in member countries.
Pitche said WAHO would continue collaborating with relevant organisations and development partners to implement regional decisions on health workforce training and capacity development.
He noted that WAHO had recorded progress in harmonising health training curricula, accreditation standards and recognition of professional qualifications among English-, French- and Portuguese-speaking countries.
According to him, the regional programme had enabled countries with different educational systems to collaborate in addressing common health challenges through improved professional training standards.
Pitche announced that WAHO would commence an evaluation of its human resources development programme in 2027 to assess achievements, identify implementation gaps and determine areas requiring improvement.
He said the evaluation would provide evidence on the progress made by member states and help identify challenges affecting the adoption and implementation of harmonised training curricula.
The director-general said such evidence would strengthen engagements with political authorities and support decisions on improving health workforce development across the region.
Pitche also commended WAHO officials and participating experts for organising the meetings despite ongoing regional health security concerns following the detection of an Ebola case in Nigeria.
He said the organisation remained committed to supporting member states in strengthening preparedness, preventing disease outbreaks and responding effectively to public health emergencies.
Earlier, Prof. Yao Tettey, representative of the West African Colleges, said postgraduate colleges had incorporated some of WAHO’s harmonised training documents into their curricula and accreditation requirements.
However, Tettey expressed concern that some regional policy documents requiring national-level implementation had not received adequate attention from relevant authorities in member states.
He urged WAHO to work through the Assembly of Health Ministers to encourage countries to adopt and implement harmonised policies on health workforce training and retention.
Tettey said effective implementation would promote the free movement of health professionals, address unequal workforce distribution and reduce migration, commonly described as the japa syndrome in Nigeria.
He said the harmonised documents were designed to improve training standards, strengthen workforce retention and address the growing movement of health professionals outside the sub-region.
Tettey commended WAHO, the Nigerian Government and the West African College of Physicians for supporting the regional meeting, expressing optimism about the deliberations.
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