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African health ministers have adopted the Africa Health Workforce Agenda 2026-2035, which aims to educate, employ and retain at least three million additional health workers by 2035.
The strategy seeks to halve the region’s projected health workforce shortage through better planning, training, job creation and retention.
The agenda aims to address Africa’s “unemployed doctor” paradox, with at least 943,000 trained health professionals currently unemployed even as health systems remain understaffed.
By 2035, Africa aims to raise the density of health professionals from 27 to 47 per 10,000 people and reduce average health worker unemployment from 27% to 13%.
African health ministers have adopted a new 10-year strategy to address the continent’s severe shortage of health workers, setting a target to educate, employ and retain at least three million additional health workers by 2035.
The Africa Health Workforce Agenda 2026-2035, adopted at the 76th session of the World Health Organization Regional Committee for Africa in Addis Ababa, aims to halve the region’s health workforce shortage.
It marks a shift from simply increasing the number of people trained as health professionals to addressing the full cycle of workforce planning, education, employment and retention.
The agenda builds on the Africa Health Workforce Investment Charter, reaffirming member states’ commitment to investing in the health workforce as a driver of stronger health systems, healthier populations and sustainable development.
Following the Regional Roadmap 2012-2025, it also builds on the African Regional Framework for implementing the Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030.
While Workforce 2030 focused on expanding the health workforce, strengthening governance and promoting equity in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, the new agenda responds to changing labour market dynamics, financing constraints and health worker unemployment.
The plan for the decade emphasises better workforce planning, transformed education and training, decent employment opportunities and the retention of health workers where they are needed most.
The agenda therefore marks the next strategic phase in strengthening the health workforce across the WHO African Region.
Africa’s health workforce has increased nearly fourfold, from 1.6 million workers in 2013 to 5.72 million in 2024. But this increase has not kept pace with the region’s growing health needs.
Africa is producing more health workers than ever before, yet millions of people still lack access to care, according to the State of the Health Workforce in Africa 2026 report, released in May.
Hundreds of thousands of trained health professionals are unable to find jobs, and many are migrating, the report said.
According to WHO estimates, the shortage could rise to more than six million health workers by 2035 if countries do not accelerate education, employment and retention.
The region is also facing a paradox: health systems are short of workers, but many trained professionals remain unemployed. At least 943,000 trained and qualified health professionals across Africa are unemployed, even as health systems remain understaffed. The average unemployment rate among health workers in the region is estimated at 27 per cent, while unemployment among new graduates ranges from 46 per cent to 69 per cent.
In several countries, more than half of newly qualified doctors, nurses and midwives cannot find jobs shortly after graduation. This bottleneck stems from a failure to align professional training with active job creation, sustainable financing and long-term public sector planning.
There are also concerns about the quality of health care. According to WHO estimates, health workers correctly diagnose only about 62 per cent of cases and provide appropriate treatment in just 40 per cent of those cases, exposing patients to avoidable risks.
The new agenda seeks to address this mismatch by linking the training of health professionals more closely with workforce needs, financing and job creation. It includes five key objectives to strengthen Africa’s health workforce. These include increased investment and policy reforms to meet current and future health needs, as well as stronger training institutions and improved quality of health workers.
The agenda also aims to expand opportunities to employ, retain and support health workers, particularly in underserved communities. In addition, it seeks to strengthen leadership and management of the health workforce and improve the collection and use of workforce data to support better planning, decision-making and accountability.
Together, these objectives are intended to help countries build health systems with enough competent, motivated and equitably distributed workers to meet changing population needs.
At the heart of the new agenda is a Plan, Train and Retain approach, emphasised by the WHO African Region in its recent report. The “Plan” component focuses on using better data and health labour market analysis to understand workforce needs and align investments with population health and service delivery priorities.
“Train” aims to improve health professions education through competency-based curricula, common quality standards and expanded training capacity. “Retain” focuses on creating sustainable jobs, ensuring fair deployment, improving working conditions and providing incentives to keep health workers, particularly in underserved areas.
The agenda says investing in the roadmap is also a major economic opportunity. Resolving Africa’s health workforce gap requires an estimated additional investment of just $4 to $6 per person annually.
However, every dollar invested is projected to return up to $10 in economic growth, and about 30 times that value in broader social benefits, such as enhanced productivity and healthier populations.
Mohamed Yakub Janabi, WHO Regional Director for Africa, said educating health workers was only the beginning. “We must also create the opportunities, the support and the conditions that enable them to serve, grow and thrive where they are needed most,” he said.
Ultimately, the success of the strategy will be measured not by policy adoption, but by tangible improvements in community health care access.
By 2035, the region aims to increase the average density of health professionals across 10 key occupations from 27 to 47 per 10,000 people. The average unemployment rate among health workers is targeted to fall from 27 per cent to 13 per cent.
The agenda also sets a number of targets for countries. By 2035, 80 per cent of countries should have health workforce strategies or investment plans aligned with the agenda. The same proportion should have competency-based education for key health professions and agreements to improve working conditions and retention.
Seventy per cent of countries are expected to have nationally agreed staffing norms to guide recruitment and deployment. All countries are expected to regularly report data on their health workforce through the National Health Workforce Accounts, while 80 per cent should conduct health labour market analyses to guide policies and investments.
The strategy also aims to improve Africa’s Universal Health Coverage service coverage index from 51 in 2024 to 60 by 2035. With this roadmap, African countries are recognising that addressing the health workforce crisis is not only about producing more graduates.
It is also about ensuring that trained health workers can find jobs, receive adequate support and remain in health systems where their skills are most needed. “This Agenda turns evidence into action and political commitment into lasting investment in Africa’s health workforce and, ultimately, in the health and well-being of our people,” said Janabi.
