World Development Information Day was celebrated this past Saturday, October 24th to draw attention to development problems and the need to strengthen international cooperation to solve them. The day was started in an effort to improve the dissemination of information and the mobilization of public opinion, particularly among young people, to increase awareness of the problems of development and increase efforts in the sphere of international cooperation for development.
In the spirit of that day, we wanted to share some key statistics and information that motivate HVO and our volunteers:
- 400 million people globally lack access to one or more essential health services. (Source: Universal Health Coverage, World Health Organization)
- Five billion people do not have access to safe, affordable surgical and anesthesia care when needed.
- Access is worst in low-income and lower-middle-income countries, where nine of ten people cannot access basic surgical care. (Source: Global Surgery 2030: evidence and solutions for achieving health, welfare, and economic development, The Lancet Commission on Global Surgery)
- There is a global shortage of more the 7.2 million health workers – a figure that will grow to 12.9 million by the year 2035.
- 83 countries (44.6%) do not currently meet the 2006 World Health Report threshold of 22.8 skilled health professionals per 10 000 population (Source: A Universal Truth: no health without a workforce, The Global Health Workforce Alliance)
We want to improve these numbers – to address the global health workforce shortage and ensure more people receive the care they need when they need it. One more piece of data we wished to share comes from Our Impact page and the data and stories we’ve gathered from our volunteers and overseas partners:
- One volunteer teaches, trains and/or mentors an average of 15 local providers and students when on an HVO assignment and ONE lesson from an HVO volunteer can lead to MANY LIVES TRANSFORMED.
Please, help us to continue our work to strengthen health systems by empowering health workers. Make a donation to Health Volunteers Overseas.
Editor’s note (10/2016): the number of people who lack access to essential services was updated to reflect new information collected by the World Health Organization.