The United Kingdom will bring to an end the Global Health Workforce Program (GHWP) by the end of this month. The project which is meant to protect nations from future health crises, also aimed at developing and training healthcare workers in six African countries, namely, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Malawi, and Somaliland.
According to the chief executive of Global Health Partnerships, Ben Simmins, “That is a genuinely historic decision, and the UK now risks ceding ground in global health that we will struggle to recover.”
The GHWP is a way to meet Britain’s commitments to invest in countries from which it recruits large numbers of human resources for the NHS and social care, and is also believed to contribute to increasing global health security by bolstering national health systems.
During the project’s previous funding renewal under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government in 2023, by the then health minister Will Quince, Quince stated that: This funding aims to make a real difference in strengthening the performance of health systems in each of the participating countries, which will have a knock-on effect on boosting global pandemic preparedness and reducing health inequalities. The pandemic showed us that patients in the UK are not safe unless the world as a whole is resilient against health threats.”
However, reports suggest that the project is currently being halted due to aid cuts, as Britain’s Labour government revealed last year that it would decrease the overseas aid budget from 0.5% to 0.3% of GDP to increase military spending, following an earlier cut under Boris Johnson’s premiership from 0.7%.
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office minister, Chris Elmore, said “The UK should be proud of the progress made in international development this century. But the world has changed, and so must we. With less money, we must make choices and focus on greater impact,” adding that actions were being taken “to ensure the sustainability of projects beyond the programme’s lifetime” and that the UK “remains committed to international development and will continue to support countries to build resilient, sustainable health systems”.
In response to this, however, the Global Health Partnerships said in a statement that: “We understand the fiscal pressures that the government faces, but we are clear that cutting investment in health workforce development in low- and middle-income countries has real human consequences – and ultimately costs more in the long run.”
They added that Partnerships could not survive on goodwill alone.” They require sustained investment and institutional commitment and once that thread is cut, it is very difficult to pick it back up.”
By: Andrews Kwesi Yeboah