Today, USAID, Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. (J&J), and the Johnson & Johnson Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding to signal a commitment to collaborate and leverage the strengths of their respective organizations to strengthen the global health workforce, starting in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The joint commitment aligns with USAID’s goal to improve global health access and quality by expanding basic and specialized training and technology to support career growth for health workers.
The non-binding MOU delivers on commitments made by USAID and the U.S. government as part of the Global Health Worker Initiative to strengthen coordination with key partners, including the private sector, to build a resilient health workforce across the globe and regions. Critically, the commitment will support the Americas Health Corps – launched by the Biden-Harris Administration and the Pan American Health Organization at the Summit of the Americas in June 2022 in its goal to train 500,000 health workers in the Latin American and Caribbean region by 2027.
Health workers generally are distributed unequally throughout the Latin American and Caribbean region, with greater needs in primary care and in under-served rural and poorer peri-urban settings. Countries across the Americas have limited information on the current health workforce ecosystem, information which is critical to inform health workforce planning, provider specialties, geographic priorities, and retention issues.
By working together, USAID, Johnson & Johnson and the Johnson & Johnson Foundation hope to extend the impact of their respective reach, influence, technical expertise, and resources and achieve better measurable and sustainable outcomes for the global health workforce.
Assistant Administrator for Global Health Atul Gawande, Vanessa Broadhurst from Johnson & Johnson, and Howard Reid from Johnson & Johnson Foundation signed the Memorandum of Understanding at an event on the sidelines of the Pan American Health Organization’s 61st Directing Council.