Member States across the WHO European Region are facing similar challenges of persistent workforce shortages, rising health service pressures and system fragility which demand renewed policies, with equity, science and inter-sectoral action as core guiding principles. Momentum exists in the Region with the approval of the Framework for Action on the Health and Care Workforce 2023–2030 to tackle challenges across the five pillars of Retain and Recruit, Build Supply, Optimise, Plan and Invest, however funding remains a challenge.

In this context the European Union and its Member States are key players and donors in Global Health, with outstanding high impact examples, such as the UHC Partnership. The UHC-Partnership, created in 2011 to promote Universal Health Coverage (UHC), has provided a transparent mechanism for coordination between WHO and donors, ensuring resources are effectively allocated and utilized to achieve UHC goals. The partnership has facilitated access to technical experts, knowledge exchanges, and capacity building and contributed to stronger health systems in participating countries of Europe and Central Asia.

The Health Labour Market Analysis (HLMA) has been instrumental for countries to inform their health workforce policies and strategies, convene relevant Ministries, and professional associations towards concrete solutions, and garner political commitment towards the health workforce. The HLMA supports countries to answer key policy questions related to their health workforce; assesses their availability, distribution, production, and retention and helps understand the issues and challenges in their supply and demand. It identifies trends, regional imbalances, mismatches and the bottlenecks. It also helps in identifying gaps in the Human Resources for Health (HRH) information systems. The HLMA process starts with the country identifying and prioritizing policy questions and forming an inter-sectoral Technical Working Group. Stewardship by the HRH unit/Focal point is critical in this process. This session will present implementation insights and learnings in using the HLMA to develop policies for strengthening the health workforce, drawing on experiences of UHC-P countries at three different stages of implementation and impact.

Tajikistan launched the Health Labour Market Analysis Report in February 2024 and subsequently developed a health workforce action plan covering recommendations emerging from the HLMA on strengthening particularly family doctors, nursing, and retention. The Ministry is implementing the action plan with technical support from WHO, which has led to concrete impacts such increase in graduates and decrease in vacancies in regions with lower healthcare provider density.

Uzbekistan launched its Health Labour Market Analysis Report in a high level policy dialogue in October 2025. It has accelerated transformative reforms on family medicine education, health workforce data systems, and PHC model and skill mix.

Armenia has recently embarked on its Health Labour Market Analysis, prioritising issues of retention in PHC, status of nursing and family doctors and post-graduate medical education reforms. The country plans to develop an action plan based on the findings and recommendations of the HLMA.

The specific objectives of the workshop are:

1. To exchange experiences and good practices across UHC-P countries on evidence-informed policies and interventions to strengthen health workforce and enhance equity.
2. To foster collaboration and knowledge exchange between WHO, Member States and the Public Health community on using evidence/science to design and implement context-specific, sustainable health workforce policies.

The workshop will add value to the knowledge-base and practice of translating evidence into policies, highlighting the importance of inter-sectoral engagement to strengthen the health workforce towards health equity and UHC.

The Workshop will be conducted in the form of a roundtable. First, an overview of UHC-P support on health workforce in the European Region will be presented. Then, three country presenters will present on their experiences. Next, the Discussant from the Public health community will comment on future directions and collaborations, followed by audience comments and questions. The Chairs will conclude with a summary of the learnings and future actions.