On day two of the week-long First Global Forum on human resources for health, our journal, Human Resources for Health occupied a central place in the Forum Market Place.

We have been exhibiting and distributing some of our more popular articles and displaying the true global nature of the journal with an interactive display which mapped out countries of focus of a broad selection of our papers.

The display was moved to Kampala from the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, where it has been publicizing the journal for the last four months.

Interest in the stand and the work of the journal was high, with many delegates to the Forum subscribing to the journal at the stand and leaving comments or recommending future areas of focus for the journal’s work.

The journal spoke to Dr Anita Davies of International Organization for Migration (IOM), who expressed an interest in seeing more original research at the forum and in the journal on the issue of return migration. "We are now hearing about examples of return migration but for the most part these are merely anecdotal we need more solid information and research on this issue", she explained.

We also spoke to an official from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), who felt that the voice of midwives and specifically that of the international Confederation of Midwives (ICM) were not sufficiently represented at the Global Forum. He urged that there be more of a focus on skilled birth attendants – a crucial component of attaining Millennium Development Goal number 5 (MDG5).

Following the close of formal sessions that day, we hosted the official launch of the new WHO publication: “Assessing, Financing, Education, Management, and Policy Context for
Strategic Planning of HRH”. More information on the document and on ordering it can be found here:

https://www.who.int/bookorders/anglais/detart1.jsp?sesslan=1&codlan=1&codcol=15&codcch=715

Day three of the forum (4 March) will see the GHWA close the main part of the Forum with – it is hoped – a joint declaration on human resources for health.

We will be reporting on the declaration tomorrow from this blog and will be speaking to delegates throughout the week on their views and interests in the Forum and the area of human resources for health.

HRH Journal, GHWA forum, Kampala, 3 March 2008