Although the HIV epidemic is widely recognized as one of the world’s largest public health crises, its effects on the health sector’s work environment and role in the global health worker shortage are often overlooked. HIV places great burdens on health systems to provide treatment and prevention, taxing critically low numbers of health workers—a population also reduced by HIV and AIDS—and introducing new workplace challenges related to occupational health and safety, stigma, and discrimination.

The Nursing Education Partnership Initiative (NEPI)—the US Government’s unified program to address the underproduction of nursing professionals in developing countries—convened its partners for the first time in June in Washington, DC. NEPI’s goal is to assist in the nursing component of the US Government’s commitment to training 140,000 additional health workers in developing countries by 2015.

The Global Health Workforce Alliance organized a consultation meeting in Montreux, Switzerland in April to assess major findings and recommendations of a comprehensive global review of community health workers (CHWs). The review is comprised of eight country case studies from Ethiopia, Mozambique, Uganda, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Brazil, and Haiti, with field experiences and perspectives of the various participants.

Dicko Fatoumata Maïga, a longtime nurse-midwife and president of the Association of Midwives of Mali, has been chosen as one of IntraHealth International’s 2010 Health Champions. She was honored at a celebration in Bamako, Mali, for her work to ensure an equitable distribution of midwives across country.

The USAID-supported Assistance Technique Nationale Plus (ATN Plus) project in Mali recently launched a database of health materials including job aids for matrones, or assistant midwives, to guide their work in family planning, reproductive health, and nutrition.