Human Resources for Eye Health Work Group

Having the right people in the right place is the cornerstone to any successful eye health programme. Human resources for eye health (HReH) is a key building block underpinning any health system. Addressing the problem of having too few qualified eye health workers and poor distribution of those qualified health workers is one of the greatest challenges to meeting the goal of Universal Eye Health.

Purpose

IAPB established a committee in 2003 to look into how best IAPB and its members could coordinate efforts to address this problem more effectively.

The HReH committee has recently reviewed its terms of reference and has evolved into a work group with a focussed approach reflecting the areas of human resources development where it is believed it can add value.

Activities / priorities

The two priority areas the group will be concentrating their efforts around are:

Training eye care teams – in collaboration with other stakeholders like the International Council of Ophthalmology (ICO) – “Scaling up numbers”;
Advocacy with regions and countries to focus on Human Resource Development for eye health.

Meetings

The Work Group will meet by teleconference at least twice a year, or face to face where possible. Opportunities for face-to-face meetings, where possible, will be sought around other events that may already see the attendance of the Work Group members.

All Work Group members are expected to actively contribute their expertise and knowledge to ensure the group meets its stated objectives.