WAHO Pushes Common Standards for Training Health Workers Across ECOWAS

ABUJA, NIGERIA  — The West African Health Organisation (WAHO) has renewed its push to harmonise health professionals education standards across the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), saying common rules on training and recognition of qualifications would ease health workforce shortages, Daily Asset reported on 3 November.

WAHO Director-General Prof. Palokinam Pitche spoke at the opening of the 11th Statutory Meeting of the Regional Council for Health Professionals Education in the ECOWAS Region, held on Monday, 2 November, at the WACOP Hotel in Abuja.

Why health professionals education standards matter

Pitche said qualified, motivated and fairly distributed health workers are essential for resilient health systems and Universal Health Coverage (UHC). According to Daily Asset, he said that “qualified, motivated and equitably distributed health professionals remained fundamental.”

He said the implementation of regional workforce strategies had been slow and uneven. Issues that need more coordinated attention include curricula, continuing professional development, professional regulation, conflicts between professions and the retention of staff.

Common health professionals education standards would mean that a nurse, doctor, pharmacist or laboratory scientist trained in one ECOWAS country is taught to a comparable level and can have their qualification recognised in another. Supporters say this helps countries share training capacity, fill gaps and keep quality consistent.

A long trail of regional agreements

Pitche cited the frameworks behind the effort. They include the 1997 WAHO Creation Protocol, the 2003 Dakar Convention on education and training, resolutions on curricula adopted in Abuja in 2006, the 2007 Dakar Convention on the recognition and equivalence of diplomas, collaboration with the African and Malagasy Council for Higher Education (CAMES) and the 2014 Additional Act of ECOWAS Heads of State on higher education and research.

He said WAHO’s human resources development programme had drawn interest from other African regions and called for an evaluation of the programme. The evaluation will begin in 2027, according to the report.

Prof. Joseph Olorunda, Head of Training and Human Resources for Health at WAHO, listed the expected results of the meeting. They include draft guidelines for harmonising university education, a revised framework for recognising certificates, a roadmap for capacity development, recognition criteria and recommendations to improve the Regional Council.

Postgraduate colleges and the japa question

Prof. Yao Tettey, who represented the West African Colleges, congratulated Pitche on his appointment and said some postgraduate colleges had already adopted WAHO’s harmonised curricula. He expressed concern that governments were not paying enough attention to regional policy documents and urged WAHO to engage the Assembly of Health Ministers.

Tettey said the documents could help address the “japa syndrome,” the term widely used in Nigeria for the emigration of skilled workers, including doctors and nurses, to the United Kingdom, North America, the Middle East and elsewhere.

Health worker migration is one of the most serious pressures on health systems in the region. Nigeria has lost large numbers of doctors and nurses in recent years, and teaching hospitals and state facilities report long waits, closed units and heavy workloads for the staff who remain.

Harmonised training does not by itself stop migration, and some analysts warn that internationally recognised qualifications can make it easier for workers to leave. Others argue that regional standards allow workers to move within West Africa rather than abroad, and that pay, working conditions, equipment and career paths are the stronger drivers of retention.

Within ECOWAS, mutual recognition of qualifications could make it easier for a country with a surplus of a particular cadre to support a neighbour facing shortages, for example in specialist nursing, anaesthesia or laboratory science. Common health professionals education standards would also make it simpler for regulators to verify the training of workers who cross borders.

What harmonised training could change for patients

For patients, the quality of training shapes the care they receive in clinics, pharmacies and hospitals. Common standards could improve skills in areas such as emergency care, infection prevention and the management of chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes, which are rising across the region.

Continuing professional development, one of the issues Pitche raised, keeps health workers up to date after they qualify. Without it, clinicians may continue to use outdated treatment guidelines, especially in rural facilities with limited access to training.

Regional standards could also support new areas of practice, such as digital health, data management and outbreak response, which have become more important since the COVID-19 pandemic and the current Ebola alerts in the region.

The meeting’s deliverables will go to WAHO and ECOWAS health ministers for consideration. Whether health professionals education standards are adopted in practice will depend on national regulators, medical and nursing councils and universities, and on whether governments act on regional agreements they have already signed.

 

 

Why it matters: Shared training and recognition rules could help West Africa use scarce health workers better, but retention depends on pay and conditions.

 

 

Source: Daily Asset (David Torough), November 2026.