Enhancing the role of community health nursing for universal health coverage

Overview

The World Health Organization (WHO) has a long history of supporting the nursing and midwifery workforce through the provision of technical assistance, as well as through establishing related norms and standards. As a follow-up to the 2011 World Health Assembly resolution (WHA64.7) on strengthening nursing and midwifery, WHO was compelled: “…to provide technical support and evidence for the development and implementation of policies, strategies and programmes on interprofessional education and collaborative practice, and on community health nursing services…” The mandate created by this resolution was since supplemented by the vision and key policy directions articulated in two other key WHO strategy documents: Global strategy on human resources for health: Workforce 2030 (1) and the Global strategic directions for strengthening nursing and midwifery 2016–2020.