HRDA’s areas of expertise
HRDA was formed to meet the emerging needs for human resources for health planning and development in the Asia Pacific Region. While HRDA has and can call upon expertise in all the areas of human resources planning, development and management, its predominant expertise is in regard to strategic planning of human resources in health. In the diagram below, where the range of human resources practice is simply illustrated, HRDA’s expertise is located more to the left hand or strategic side of the HR field.
HRDA’s principal areas of work are closely aligned with the five strategic objectives of the World Health Organisation’s Western Pacific Region Office[1] for regional human resources. The key directions of HRDA’s work include:
- Ensuring that effective and appropriate health workforce planning and development is an integral part of Asian and Pacific county’s national policy and responsive to population and service needs. This will require support for HR information systems and will enable the delivery of effective health services by addressing workforce size, distribution and skill mix.
- Identifying and advising ways to satisfy health worker needs including appropriate workplace environments, to ensure optimal workforce retention and participation.
- Improving the quality of education and training to meet the skill and development needs of the health workforce in changing service environments.
- Understanding and advising upon how to strengthen health workforce governance and management to ensure the delivery of cost-effective, evidence-based and safe health services.