I am writing to share two documents that I hope will be useful tools in developing, updating, and reviewing and revising health workforce plans and policies, in order to help develop successful health workforce plans that are rooted in human rights.
The first is *The Right to Health and Health Workforce Planning: A Guide for Government Officials, NGOs, Health Workers and Development Partners*. Physicians for Human Rights released this guide last month to provide in-depth guidance on how to incorporate the right to health into health workforce plans. A deliberate focus on human rights will help ensure that plans (and the process of developing, implementing, and monitoring them) are ambitious and designed to meet the population's health needs, that they give due emphasis to such key human rights principles as equity, participation, and accountability, and that they cover issues that might otherwise be passed over entirely, such as the need for human rights education for all health workers. The guide is available at: http://physiciansforhumanrights. org/library/ documents/ reports/health- workforce- planning-guide-2.pdf<http://physiciansforhumanrights.org/library/documents/reports/health\-workforce\-planning\-guide\-2\.pdf>
The second is a shorter document by the Health Workforce Advocacy Initiative (HWAI), *Guiding Principles for National Health Workforce Strategies*. This document provides overarching principles that will promote the success of health workforce plans and ensure that they are consistent with human rights. The *Guiding Principles* are available at: http://www.healthwrkforce.info/ advocacy/ HWAI_Principles.pdf<http://www.healthworkforce.info/advocacy/HWAI_Principles.pdf>\-\-they are also available are versions in French (http://www. healthworkforce. info/advocacy/ HWAI_Principles_ FR.pdf) and Spanish (http://www. healthworkforce. info/advocacy/ HWAI_Principles_ES.pdf).
We encourage you to make use of these tools yourselves, and share them widely to those involved in health workforce planning to help ensure the development and full implementation of rights- and needs-based, comprehensive, costed health workforce plans. Please let me know if you are having any trouble accessing the documents and I can send you .pdf files. And please let me know whether you would like to join the HWAI network or learn more about HWAI.
Eric A. Friedman
Senior Global Health Policy Advisor
Physicians for Human Rights
Email: efriedman@phrusa. org
Website: http://physiciansfo rhumanrights.org