Let's hand it to world leaders

Join our petition and give us a hand to make investment in health workers a global priority. Just fill in the Act Now box at the top of the page to add your voice and make change happen:

By supporting a health worker, your name will automatically be added to a petition that Merlin will take to world leaders this September.

We want 12,000 people to put their weight behind our call for urgent reallocation of aid to health workers in crisis countries.

World leaders must recognise that unless they direct health funding towards health workers in crisis countries, global health targets will never be reached. And thousands of people will continue to die needlessly.

Ending needless deaths starts with training health workers.
And with you putting your hand up.

You're more likely to die young – and from an entirely treatable and preventable disease - if you live in a country caught up in crisis*.

*by crisis we mean anything from conflict like in Afghanistan or Somalia, to chronic poverty as in Liberia, the Central African Republic and Nepal.

Sound obvious? We think so too. But you'd be amazed at how, when it comes to deciding where the bulk of health funding should go, countries like Liberia, Pakistan and the Central African Republic all too often get the thin end of the wedge, even though health needs are enormous.

The facts

• If you live in a crisis country you're 13 times more likely to die from malaria than elsewhere in the developing world.
• More than a third of mothers who die in childbirth live in a country that's either mired in, or emerging from, conflict.
• Half of all children who die before their fifth birthday are born in countries suffering chronic poverty.

One surefire way to stem such colossal loss of life is supporting the health workers on the ground now and training thousands more.

Doesn't it make sense then - economically, socially, morally - to make sure aid goes to training health workers in the countries where most people die? Wouldn't that have the biggest impact on local and global health?

Training local health workers + meeting global targets = efficient aid

This wouldn't just save lives in these crisis countries – it would dramatically improve global health too. None of the promises the world made to reduce death and disease by 2015 can hope to be achieved if aid isn't urgently directed to the places where the most people die.

That's why we're campaigning for change and asking you to put your hand up for health workers.

The change we want to see now

We want national governments and international donors to develop effective and resourced national health work force plans. These plans must deliver the vision, action and funding needed to train, equip and pay health workers in crisis countries.

How can we afford to train the health workers needed and support existing ones?

While we're calling for urgent investment, we're also demanding greater efficiency with current aid allocations. We want at least 50 per cent of all health funding to be allocated to building health systems in crisis countries with 50 per cent of this going to support health workers.