Target 3.c: Health workforce financing and training
Substantially increase health financing and the recruitment, development, training and retention of the health workforce in developing countries, especially in least developed countries and small island developing States
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
WHO projects a shortfall of 11 million health workers by 2030, mostly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. It attributes the shortfall to under-investment in training, public budget constraints that leave trained workers unemployed, and international migration. The remedy is public health financing and education policy. The one corporate touchpoint is international recruitment. The International Council of Nurses reports that employers in the UK, US, Canada, Australia and Gulf states are aggressively recruiting nurses from vulnerable countries. It reports one in ten African nurses now working abroad and Fiji losing 20 to 30 percent of its nurses each year. The WHO Global Code of Practice on International Recruitment seeks to restrain this practice. Listed hospital operators and staffing companies are among the recruiters that deplete developing-country workforces. Owners pressing for Code-compliant recruitment therefore hold a small but real lever on retention. Industry lobbying pushes recruitment in the other direction. The American Hospital Association and allied groups have pressed Congress to release tens of thousands of green cards for foreign nurses and physicians. Public financing remains decisive, so owners help at the margin.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
No shareholder advocacy found yet
We looked and found nothing that met our standard, which is a source we opened and confirmed. No shareholder proposal, investor letter or engagement was located that asks a listed hospital operator, staffing company or recruiter to comply with the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel or to limit recruitment from countries with health workforce shortages. Searches returned academic and policy literature on the Code and on recruiter codes of conduct, not action taken through share ownership. The American Hospital Association named in the rationale is a trade association engaged in government lobbying, not a target of any shareholder campaign located here.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.