The Federal Government and the West African Health Organisation (WAHO) have moved to strengthen regional cooperation on health workforce planning, with a proposed framework to harmonise training, improve working conditions and curb the migration of health professionals across West Africa.
The initiative is expected to provide a long-term strategy for retaining skilled health workers, addressing staff shortages and improving access to quality healthcare across member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
The Minister of State for Health, Dr Adekunle Salako, disclosed this on Monday at the opening of a regional meeting in Abuja to review the work plan on the motivation and retention of health workers in ECOWAS member states.
Salako, represented by the Director and Head of the Department of Health Planning, Research and Statistics at the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Dr Ovuoraye John, said the initiative would complement a continental programme targeting two million community health workers across Africa by 2028.
He said the meeting coincided with activities marking the 50th anniversary of the West African College of Physicians and a high-level African Union forum on the community health workforce scheduled to take place in Abuja from October 28 to 30.
According to him, the convergence of the three initiatives presented an opportunity for African countries to align their national, regional and continental strategies to address the persistent shortage of health personnel.
“We now know that we cannot do it alone in silos. We need every resource available to us as a country to get it right. The health workforce is the challenge that we are facing on our continent,” Salako said.
He explained that while the ECOWAS work plan would focus on motivating and retaining health professionals, the continental initiative would explore ways to expand the community health workforce, taking into account the specific needs of individual countries.
He added that medical training institutions also had a critical role to play in producing specialists and other health professionals capable of meeting the healthcare needs of their communities.
On public health security, Salako urged participants from other African countries to observe Nigeria’s Ebola prevention protocols, assuring them that the country was strengthening its response following confirmation of an imported case.
He said Nigeria had recorded no additional cases since the initial confirmation, adding that contact tracing had been expanded to 53 people as of Sunday.
According to him, all 53 contacts were being monitored, while those considered at risk had been tested and returned negative results.
He also said the index patient was recovering, although she had been medically evacuated to Switzerland earlier on Monday. He expressed confidence in the country’s containment measures.
Salako stressed that cross-border movement remained essential to regional trade and cooperation, making coordinated action necessary to manage public health threats without undermining relations among countries.
In his remarks, the representative of the West African College of Surgeons, Professor Foluso Owoeye, warned that the migration of health professionals, popularly described as “brain drain” or “japa” in Nigeria, threatened the sustainability, quality and accessibility of healthcare across the subregion.
He said the effectiveness of healthcare systems depended not only on infrastructure and modern technology but also on the availability, competence and motivation of health workers.
Owoeye noted that professional colleges invested substantial financial and institutional resources in training healthcare personnel, warning that such investments would yield limited benefits if governments failed to create conditions that encouraged trained professionals to remain and serve their communities.
He urged stakeholders to ensure that the regional work plan contained practical interventions, measurable targets, realistic timelines and clearly defined institutional responsibilities.
He also called for stronger links between professional training and retention through specialist training opportunities, mentorship, research and career advancement.
According to him, ECOWAS member states should strengthen cooperation through equitable workforce distribution, professional mobility, mutual support and the sharing of expertise.
Owoeye further stressed the need to involve health workers in developing retention policies, warning that measures introduced without considering their aspirations, frustrations and work experiences might fail to achieve their objectives.
“The West African College of Surgeons is committed to partnering with WAHO and national governments in training and retention, capacity-building, mentorship, research and policy advocacy,” he said.
He added that the success of the initiative should be measured by the number of health professionals who chose to remain, serve and thrive in the subregion, rather than by the quality of the document produced.
Earlier, the Director-General of WAHO, Professor Palokinam T. Pitch, said the authorities had demonstrated renewed commitment to addressing the region’s health workforce challenges.
Pitch, represented by WAHO’s Director of Public Health and Research, Professor Joseph Olorunda, said the Authority of Heads of State had directed that the document be completed to guide workforce retention planning over the next five, 10, 15 and 20 years.
He said the completed framework would subsequently be presented to the Assembly of Health Ministers for consideration and implementation.
Pitch disclosed that WAHO had begun efforts to harmonise training curricula, with 58 curricula developed across different disciplines, including subspecialties.
He explained that harmonisation would facilitate the movement of health professionals across ECOWAS member states by making it easier for personnel trained in one country to practise and provide services in another.
He said long-term workforce planning had become imperative as countries struggled to retain health professionals amid growing healthcare demands, including the rising burden of non-communicable diseases and the effects of climate change.
Also speaking, the Head of WAHO’s Regional Council of Health Training Personnel, Professor Kofi Balogun, said retaining health workers required adequate remuneration, suitable accommodation and supportive working environments.
He said governments must move beyond training health professionals to creating the conditions necessary for them to remain available to serve communities across West Africa.
Presenting the objectives and expected outcomes of the meeting, Olorunda identified poor remuneration, delayed salaries, inadequate working conditions, limited career progression, uneven workforce distribution and migration as major challenges undermining healthcare delivery in the subregion.
He said Africa accounted for about 24 per cent of the global disease burden but had only three per cent of the global health workforce, underscoring the need for urgent interventions to address the imbalance.
The presentation also cited projections that Africa would require an additional 4.2 million health workers by 2030, alongside figures attributed to a 2025 United Kingdom government report indicating that between 85,000 and 90,000 Nigerian-trained doctors and nurses were registered in the UK.
The proposed framework is expected to strengthen long-term workforce planning, promote evidence-based staffing strategies, particularly in underserved communities, and improve coordination among ECOWAS member states.
It also prioritises better remuneration, improved working environments and expanded career development opportunities as measures to encourage health professionals to remain in the region.
WAHO urged governments to treat health workforce retention as a public health priority, stressing that adequately trained and motivated personnel were indispensable to effective healthcare delivery across West Africa.
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