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Getting Health Workers to Under-Served Populations: Asian Action Alliance on Human Resources for Health, Hanoi, Vietnam

Vietnamese musician entertaining Asian participants

China Medical Board joined the Vietnam Ministry of Health, WHO, World Bank, and the Rockefeller Foundation to support an Asian conference to promote "getting committed health workers to the underserved areas: a challenge for health systems." The Asia-wide regional meeting was conducted by the Asian Action Alliance on Human Sources for Health in Hanoi, Vietnam on November 23-24, 2009. Over 150 participants from more than 20 Asian countries set delegates to the meeting to examine evidence, share country experiences, and offer recommendations. Opened by the Vietnamese Vice-Minister of Health, Madame Nguyen Thi Kim Tien,the meeting also featured welcoming by Dr. Mubashar Sheikh of the Global Health Workforce Alliance, Dr. Suwit of AAAH, and Dr. Manuel Dayrit of WHO. Dr. Lincoln Chen of the China Medical Board gave the conference keynote address. Over two days, the delegates participated in plenary and break-out sessions organized around four major strategic approaches to this health equity challenge - education, regulation, incentives, and systems support. Recommendations from the meeting would be fed into a WHO Expert Group for consideration of more developed formal regulations to be presented at the May 2010 World Health Assembly.