We think 2020 is going to be our kind of year.
Maybe it’s the optimism of a brand-new decade. Or maybe it’s knowing that despite all the global uncertainty and unrest, humans are in a pretty good place, historically speaking. Today less than 10% of people live in extreme poverty, according to the World Bank—down from almost 36% just 30 years ago.
But it’s more than that. For the first time ever, the global health community is shifting its gaze to a group of people we at IntraHealth International have been passionate about for 40 years now.
We’re talking about nurses and midwives.
The World Health Organization has declared 2020 to be their year. Because as we get closer to our most ambitious global goals—nothing short of universal health coverage, an AIDS-free generation, and the end of extreme poverty—the global community has realized that nurses and midwives will be the ones to get us there.
They’re the fuel that powers the engines of health care.
For decades, they’ve been undervalued, underestimated, overworked. But they care for clients like us from birth to death and everywhere in between. They make up 50% of the health workforce worldwide. In every city, every hospital, every village where they work, they’re the fuel that powers the engines of health care.
So we’re excited to see them in the limelight at last.
Here are three things we’ll be working toward in 2020 to help nurses and midwives gain the power, authority, and resources they need to lead us all into the future of global health.
Gender equality at work
Most nurses and midwives are women. In fact, women make up 70% of the entire health and social care workforce around the world. Yet only 25% of health system leadership roles are held by women.
Last year, we and our partners surveyed 2,537 nurses and nurse-midwives from 117 countries to find out what hinders and helps nurses on their way to leadership roles. The resulting report—Investing in the Power of Nurse Leadership: What Will It Take?—sheds light on the gender-related barriers nurses face in rising to the top of their fields and what it will take to remove them. Respondents described widespread discrimination, bias, stereotyping, and sexual harassment.
“It’s clear this isn’t about the individual nurse who needs to be developed,” said IntraHealth’s Constance Newman at the report’s launch event at Women Deliver 2019. “It’s about the systems that need to be changed in order to raise the profile and improve the status and effectiveness of nurse leaders.”
Also read: Global Survey Suggests Gender-Related Barriers Stifle the Leadership Potential of Nurses
In 2020, we’ll be talking to more nurses and midwives on the front lines around the world and amplifying their voices, stories, and struggles. Check out the first webinar in our new series by IntraHealth, Johnson & Johnson, and Nursing Now on the gender-related barriers to and catalysts of nurse leadership.
