At the 2011 General Assembly in April, Kristine Dandanell Garn was elected for one of the board member posts. In the meantime, she has been offered a position as Junior Professional Officer in Mozambique, beginning this autumn. To replace her, Jane Brandt Sørensen, who was elected as an alternate member of the board, has stepped in as a regular board member. The board wishes to thank Mrs. Garn for her work so far. We welcome Ms. Sørensen and hope for a fruitful collaboration.

On 29 April, Global Doctors organized a seminar on Human Resources in Health at the University of Copenhagen. The seminar formed part of the international conference Global Health beyond the Millenium Development Goals: Visions for public health priorities and the corresponding research agenda up to 2030, organized by the Danish research network for international health.

The conference attempted to answer why many countries are not fulfilling the health-related Millenium Development Goals, and what should be the future priorities of public health policy and research. The seminar organized by Global Doctors sought to highlight the central role of Human Resources in Health in this regard: health systems cannot function without the people who run them, who deliver the health care services, and who conduct the health research.

The WHO has estimated that a number of countries have such great constraints on their number of health workers that this fact alone will prevent them from fulfilling the Millenium Development Goals. However, our seminar provided some promising examples of innovative ways to help mitigate the lack of health workers.

Videos of the speakers, along with their slides, are available at the conference web site: http://www.enrecahealth.dk/conference/programme/

Ensuring adequate human resources in the health system is central to the work of Global Doctors. In 2006, the WHO estimated that there is a global shortage of as many as 2.4 million health workers to ensure essential health services. The problem will only tend to get worse as populations age and new treatments are developed.

Global Doctors address this issue through our capacity-building projects as well as through conferences, seminars, and advocacy work.

Read more about the global health worker crisis here.

The new Medical Peace Work e-learning courses have been launched on 27 January 2011. Global Doctors have collaborated on developing the courses in order to build the capacity of health workers in times of violence and political instability to work for health, peace and human rights.

The aim of the courses is to educate health professionals about the impact of war and other forms of violence on the health of individuals and populations, and to show how they can make a positive and particular contribution to peace building, violence prevention and conflict transformation. The courses provide the participants with new insights into the special role and responsibility of healthcare professionals in peace work.

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Global Doctors' new project in Rwanda, titled Human Resources in Health Rwanda, is now well underway. The aim of the project is to build up the capacity of the Rwandan Medical Association to represent health workers in the country and work for proper prioritization of health care resources. In this way we hope to contribute to rebuilding and improving the Rwandan health system.

In February, a project visit will take place in Rwanda by representatives of Global Doctors and the Danish Medical Association.

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Everyone with an interest in global health can become a member of Global Doctors. Global Doctors welcomes people of all professional backgrounds and with or without previous experience in working with global health. If you have questions or wish to participate actively in our work, please contact us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Global Doctors are currently looking for volunteers to help us develop our capacity-building programmes in Africa, to participate in the advocacy work after Global Response 2010 or to assist in our campaign for human resources in health.

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