Abuja, Nigeria, 12 November, 2014- The National Council of Health (NCH) for Nigeria has approved both the National Health Workforce Registry(NHWR) Operation Guidelines & Policy Amendment for adoption by all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) at the NCH held on 30th October 2014 in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

With the approval, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, becomes the first in the world that has mandated the registration of all health workers and other health workforce production data in a single registry. Bauchi and Cross River States will be the  first to pre-test the replica NHWR software  to be  supported by WHO’s Human Resource for Health (HRH) Project, funded by Canada/DFATD.

The endorsement was the culmination of an initiative which started back in 2011/2012 with WHO’s technical support in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

In one of the recent meetings organized for stakeholders on the 15th, October 2014 in Abuja, the Senior Special Assistant to Honourable Minister of Health, Dr Alex Onoyona reiterated the strong support of the ministry in the development of the National Health Workforce Registry from inception and wanted “this to be part of the legacy of the present administration”, describing it as a “low hanging fruit that should be harvested in the country”.

Delivering a goodwill message to the over 60 participants at the event, that comprised representatives from Federal and states Ministries of Health, donor-partners as well as Regulatory bodies, the WHO Country Representative, Dr Rui Gama Vaz stated that he was optimistic the ‘’National Health Workforce Registry will provide adequate institutional capacities that can track and account for all health workers in Nigeria, to contribute actively to achieving set goals”

The Technical Officer from WHO HQ that facilitated the development of the NWHR, Dr. Ramesh Kirshnamurthy further underscored the importance of the National Health Workforce Registry tool while debriefing the HRH Council chaired by the Honorable Minister of State for health and supervising Minister at the Federal Ministry of health, directors and partners on the context of the Health Workforce Registry, Key Milestones, Minimum Data Elements and presented the Registry Operational Guidelines for their review, which he noted will generally guide implementation in the 36 states and the FCT.

To be effective, representatives from various states requested FMOH through WHO to provide technical assistance in developing and implementing training program for full implementation and day-to-day operations of The Registry at state and LGA levels. They also solicited for the development of comprehensive template for Standard Operating Procedures.

A prototype National Health Workforce Registry with nearly 500,000 licensed health workers from 4 regulatory bodies was used to test and validate the registry.

WHO will in collaboration with the Federal and States MOH, continue to support the next phase of implementation.