European Small Countries Commit to Strengthening Sustainable Health Workforce

Countries participating in the WHO European Region’s Small Countries Initiative have reaffirmed their commitment to building a stronger and more sustainable health workforce, recognising the critical role of healthcare professionals in delivering resilient and accessible health systems.

The commitment was highlighted during the 12th High-Level Meeting of the Small Countries Initiative, where ministers and senior officials discussed strategies to address workforce shortages, improve retention and strengthen long-term health system capacity. Participants emphasised the need for coordinated action to ensure health systems can respond effectively to current and future challenges.

Discussions focused on measures including workforce planning, education and training, skills development and improving working conditions for healthcare professionals. The countries also exchanged experiences and best practices aimed at supporting recruitment and retention across the health sector.

The meeting underscored the importance of investing in health workers as a foundation for resilient healthcare systems and sustainable development. Participants highlighted the need for continued collaboration to strengthen workforce capacity and ensure access to quality healthcare services across their countries.

Health-workforce sustainability is a critical but under-appreciated dimension of overall system resilience. Even well-funded health systems struggle to deliver outcomes when workforce shortages, retention challenges or skills-development gaps constrain service capacity. The Small Countries Initiative recognition that health-workforce planning is central to SDG 3 (health and well-being) delivery is analytically important.

The focus on training, retention and working conditions reflects understanding that workforce sustainability is multi-dimensional. Compensation, career progression, workload management and work-life balance all shape recruitment and retention. Coordinated approaches across small countries can share best practices and potentially pool resources for regional training capability.

For healthcare providers, health-insurance companies, medical-technology providers and financial institutions supporting health-sector investment, Cognitud's impact assessment, CSR and sustainability due diligence teams help clients evaluate health-workforce-related risks and opportunities, structure workforce-development partnership programmes, and prepare disclosures aligned with SDG 3, ISSB and jurisdictional health-sustainability frameworks that increasingly determine reputation and access to healthcare-linked sustainable finance.