As part of the “Health Resilience in the Eastern Partnership” programme, funded by the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Enlargement and the Eastern Neighbourhood (DG ENEST), WHO/Europe will convene a technical workshop in Chisinau, Moldova on 12–13 June 2025 on the topic of health workforce migration. The event, titled “Subregional technical workshop on health workforce migration in the Eastern Partnership countries”, will gather key stakeholders from the 5 countries which are part of the European Union’s Eastern Partnership (EaP) – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine – to address health workforce migration and its impact on workforce sustainability in this subregion.
To promote an open dialogue among all countries, participants from a group of receiving European countries will also attend the meeting to discuss solutions to address health workforce migration, ensuring that there are benefits for both sending and receiving countries.
The event will focus on identifying effective policy responses and collaborative solutions to ensure health systems remain resilient and sustainable considering increasing workforce mobility across the WHO European Region.
Discussions at the event will also inform the development of 5 new case studies on health workforce migration in the 5 countries.
Why a workshop on health workforce migration?
Health workforce migration is a serious challenge in the 5 EaP countries – with a significant portion of health workers migrating, a rapidly ageing workforce with over 40% of medical doctors over the age of 55, and below-average production of graduates in some of the countries. This is driven by a mix of factors, including the prospect of better pay and working conditions and, generally, an increasing reliance on international health professionals.
As the migration of health workers is likely to continue, it is crucial to ensure a mutual understanding of the full scale of migration trends and flow patterns, and the ways that international instruments and country-level interventions can be effective at addressing the migration of health workers.
In this regard, a platform for open dialogue and collaboration among stakeholders, including policy-makers, international experts and representatives from the 5 EaP as well as receiving countries, is essential to discuss ways in which health workforce migration can benefit receiving and sending countries.
Event format and objectives
The technical workshop will consist of a mix of technical presentations and discussions on the following key areas:
- trends in health workforce migration: understanding the migration dynamics in the EaP countries and their impact on health systems;
- effective policy responses: identifying innovative measures to manage workforce migration, including strategies for better regulation, recruitment, retention and integration of international health professionals;
- collaboration for sustainability: exploring opportunities for collaboration between sending and receiving countries to develop sustainable solutions for workforce migration; and
- regional cooperation: identifying specific actions for regional collaboration aimed at improving health workforce sustainability and enhancing health system resilience.
Background
Health workforce migration is a priority area in the “Framework for action on the health and care workforce in the WHO European Region 2023–2030”. The Framework stresses the importance of policy actions to ensure the retention of health workers on one hand while also ensuring effective health workforce planning mechanisms.
Various global and national initiatives have been put in place to manage migration flows, including WHO’s Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel and bilateral agreements between countries. However, the challenge remains to ensure that the migration of health workers benefits both sending and receiving countries while safeguarding health system resilience.