With nearly half of the world’s population living in a rural or remote area, meeting the health needs of rural populations, where over 80% of the world’s extremely poor live, is imperative for achieving universal health coverage.

Yet, an estimated two billion people living in rural and remote areas across the world do not have adequate access to the essential health services they need within their communities. Access to health workers should not be dependent on where one lives. Deficiency in numbers and mix of trained motivated health workers and unequal distribution of health workers across and within countries is a critical health system issue that needs to be addressed. Inequitable access to health workers and health services impacts health outcomes and increases socioeconomic disadvantages.

The updated WHO guideline emphasizes that a whole-of-society approach for selecting, monitoring and evaluating the impact of a contextually relevant bundle of interventions. This guideline presents a pathway for reversing both the current and predicted worsening shortage of health workers in rural and remote areas through protecting the existing rural health workforce, which will aid their retention; and investing in the development and training of multidisciplinary fit-for-purpose health teams and in the attraction and recruitment of health workers. Through proactive evidence-based interventions, policy-makers can ensure that equitable access to health workers in rural areas is achieved. Leaving no one behind means ensuring that health workers are available in rural and remote areas.