€4.5m AFD Project Targets Addressing Human Resources Challenges

The French Development Agency (AFD) has launched a €4.5 million project supporting human resources in healthcare at ECOWAS regional health agency WAHO, and in three French-speaking west African countries.

To implement the four-year project (2023-2027) is Expertise France, AFD’s subsidiary, an inter-ministerial agency for International Technical Cooperation. 

The project based on France’s One Health and gender-sensitive approach targets the reduction of mortality rates in West Africa’s healthcare system via the development of the skills of healthcare workers in key areas. 

These include: preventing, monitoring and controlling epidemics; quantity and quality of human resources in public health; in the fight against communicability; managing health emergencies; promoting gender equality and a multi-sector approach.

Speaking of the intervention, WAHO director general, Dr Melchior Athanase Aissi who described inadequate human resource in healthcare as ‘one of the major challenges of the region’ said the AFD/Expert France project “is one of the credible solutions expected for the prevention, detection and management of health crises in the ECOWAS region”. 

AFD Nigeria director, Xavier Muron said the project aims to support West Africa community capacity to anticipate and respond promptly to public health emergencies. “Investing in human capital is key to building health systems and institutions capable of dealing with future crises.

“This project also supports a pillar of WAHO’s strategy which is – the implementation of attractive strategies for the retention, management, training and development of human resources”.