Strengthening the Emergency Workforce

Overview

Countries across the Asia Pacific, have made significant advances in strengthening their health emergency preparedness and response architecture, including improving policies and leveraging partnership surge networks such as Emergency Medical Teams (EMT) and the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN). Yet, we face critical gaps in the emergency workforce with limited trained workforce capacity, fragmented coordination, and systems that struggle to mobilize response teams when crises occur. Protecting every community from future health threats begins with one critical investment: people. 

To advance the readiness of the emergency workforce across the Asia Pacific, this briefer outlines a pathway to develop a skilled, agile, and interoperable workforce capable of sustaining routine health services while ready to respond to any emergency.