Abuja, March 22 2021 - “I would like to appreciate the collaboration and commitment of the Department of Health Planning, Research and Statistics of the Federal Ministry of Health over the years towards the development of the National Health Workforce Registry”, stated Dr Kofi Boateng who represented WHO Nigeria country Representative during the technical handing over of the Health Workforce Registry to the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) on March 19 2021.

He further thanked the Government of Canada through Global Affairs Canada who funded the development of the prototype of the National Health Workforce Registry (NHWR) and its piloting in Bauchi and Cross River States. This was achieved under the Enhancing the Ability of Frontline Health Workers to Improve Health project implemented by WHO Nigeria.
 Subsequently, WHO also supported the expansion of the registry to Anambra and Sokoto States with funding from the European Union; Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Abia, Osun, Niger and Edo with funding from the Government of Japan and WHO. To sustain the operations of the Registry, WHO supported the development of some guidance documents  (NHWR Operational Guidelines, Standard Operation Procedure, Basic User Manual, Advanced User Manual, Disaster Recovery Plan, and Implementation Guide). 

The Implementation guide, Standard Operation Procedure, and Basic User Manual were compiled into the Handbook of the National Health Workforce Registry and launched by the Minister of Health,  Dr Osagie Ehanire, on 03 March 2020. The HRH branch of the FMoH and ICT focal points were also trained on these guidelines on three occasions (07 to 09 August 2019, 09 to 11 October 2019, and 27 August 2020) with mentoring support being ongoing.

The WHO’s support was timely, as the FMoH has been for a while, working on obtaining accurate data on the existing health workforce in the country in order to facilitate human resource for health planning and thereby deliver efficient, effective and quality health services to its citizens. According to Dr Sunny Okoroafor, WHO HRH focal point, “the development of the Registry commenced in 2013 without much success due to several reasons but today, we have a platform to build on with WHO supporting the co-creation of the prototype and a Handbook of the National Health Workforce Registry to ensure is functionality and sustainability.” 

“Consequent upon our resolve to ensure that Nigeria puts in place a detailed and functional National Health Workforce Registry (NHWR), the Word Health Organization (WHO) with funding provided by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) supported the Ministry to develop the National Health Workforce Registry platform, a platform created to house health workforce information from all the 36 States of the Federation plus the FCT, including data from the Public and Private sectors as stated in the Operational Guideline and Standard Operating Procedure (2015) documents under the relevant submitting entities” says Dr Ngozi Azodoh, Director Health Planning, Research and Statistics.

Currently, the registry includes health workforce information for 11 states. thus, there is a need for the FMoH and partners to support the scaling up of the registry to cover the remaining states in the country as well as the Federal Departments, Agencies and Parastatals, and the private sector. Currently, the FMoH is coordinating the inclusion of other States by various development partners based on the guidance documents and with the technical support of WHO.

Technical Contact:
Dr Kofi Boateng; Email: boatengko [at] who.int; Tel: +234 706 449 1772