Health Professional Education Market Assessment - Saudi Arabia

Project Details

A responsive and efficient health workforce is critical to meeting the health needs of the population, both now and into the future. The market for health professional education is an important determinant of the quantity and quality of health professionals produced and thereby influences the functioning of the health services system.

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the health workforce is heavily reliant on foreign workers, as Saudi nationals make up only 30% of all physicians and 37% of the nursing workforce. There is also an underrepresentation of women, particularly in the physician workforce. Saudi Arabia’s Health Sector Transformation Plan was developed as a roadmap to reduce dependence on foreign workers the health sector and seeks to transform the workforce to increase the quality and efficiency of health service delivery. Strategies and investments targeting health professional education will be a key to the achievement of these goals.

This project will undertake an analysis of the market for health professional education in KSA to understand supply and demand side factors which shape the production of healthcare professionals and inform strategies designed to improve the volume and nature of labour market supply.

Researchers

Professor Barbara McPake
Andrea Boudville
Dr Tori Oliver

Collaborators

Saudi Health Council

World Bank

Funding

This research is funded by the Saudi Ministry of Finance under the Saudi-World Bank Technical Cooperation Program Agreement