On July 13, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Taiwan International Cooperation and Development Fund (TaiwanICDF) jointly organized a two-part training series to strengthen the capacity of Pacific Island Countries to deliver quality health services to its citizens.
The Health Workforce Management and Data Systems: A Focus on Pacific Island Countries and Health System Resilience training was attended by 40 health leaders, managers and practitioners representing 10 countries. This training aims to build understanding in health workforce planning, data and systems, and to support effective health workforce management. These areas are key to both achieving national health goals and improving a country’s response to emerging threats, including public health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, or catastrophic weather events.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has weakened health systems globally, underscoring the need to strengthen health sector resilience. As the backbone of any health system, the health workforce plays a critical role in ensuring quality service delivery that is responsive to a country’s needs,” USAID Acting Deputy Mission Director for Pacific Islands and Mongolia, Marisol Pérez, said.
During the training, participants engaged experts and shared among their peers to exchange best practices and approaches to improve their health workforce data and systems.This will better prepare them to take action in their own countries.
The USAID-TaiwanICDF collaboration marks the beginning of a new partnership that seeks to leverage the technical expertise, experience and global and regional knowledge of the two agencies to address development challenges in the Pacific region.
“As we celebrate the 60th anniversary of USAID, we are pleased to partner with our Taiwan counterparts as we jointly pursue our shared vision of bolstering the ability of Pacific Islands countries to lead and manage their journey to more stable, prosperous futures,” Acting Deputy Mission Director Pérez added.
The United States has been the world’s largest provider of bilateral assistance in global health. Over the past decade, the United States has invested more than $620 million for health for the Pacific Islands.
