Health workers - migration
Migration
The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel was adopted by the Sixty-third World Health Assembly in 2010 through resolution WHA63.16. The Code establishes voluntary principles for ethical international recruitment, safeguarding the rights of migrant health personnel while promoting equitable and sustainable health systems. Its implementation, relevance and effectiveness have been assessed through periodic reporting and expert advisory group reviews.
Following the third review in 2026, which reaffirmed the Code’s growing relevance amid increasing international recruitment of health personnel, the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly adopted amendments through resolution WHA79.12. The second edition of the Code (November 2026) incorporates five new provisions (Articles 2.4, 2.5, 5.8, 10.4 and 10.5), extending the Code’s scope to health personnel employed as care workers and clarifying its applicability during health emergencies and other crises. The amendments also encourage mutually beneficial partnerships and targeted co-investments between source and destination countries, measures to mitigate health workforce losses during crises, and investments in health worker education, employment and retention.
In May, Member States approved a resolution to amend the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (the Code) and to strengthen its implementation, following Member State-led consultations in the lead up to the Seventy-ninth World Health Assembly. The resolution marks an important step toward the vision that everyone, everywhere can access competent and motivated health and care workers – a foundation for both universal health coverage and global health security.
Read more about the Expert Advisory Group recommendations
About health workforce migration
International health worker migration is a long-standing and growing phenomenon, driven by fundamental labour market forces relating to different elements such as education, working conditions and remuneration across countries, and which further accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic. While substantial migration and mobility also occurs among countries in the same region or context,, increasing international recruitment from low- and middle-income countries to meet domestic shortages in high income countries can exacerbate shortages in the former. If not adequately managed, international mobility and migration of health workers from countries facing heath worker shortages can weaken their health systems and widen inequities.
To improve the governance of international health worker migration, the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (the Code) was adopted by the World Health Assembly in 2010. The Code seeks to minimize the negative consequences of health worker migration and promote workforce sustainability. The reporting on the Code implementation allows better understanding of health worker mobility trends and highlight priority issues that warrant attention.
In 2025, the Fifth round of reporting on the Code was completed. Six regional consultations on the Expert Advisory Group’s interim report on the Code review were conducted between June to October 2025, and the Fourth meeting of the EAG took place in November 2025. In 2026, the World Health Assembly adopted resolution WHA79.12, and the second edition of the Code was published in November 2026.
The recommendations of the Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, 2nd ed. and the associated WHO health workforce support and safeguards list 2023 link international health worker migration with investments in health system strengthening in all countries. Well managed health worker migration can advance health worker welfare and benefits to health systems in both source and destination countries and contribute to progress towards Sustainable Development Goals on health, gender equality, decent working conditions and economic growth and reducing inequalities.
WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel, 2nd ed.
The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel was adopted by the Sixty-third World Health Assembly in 2010 through...
User’s Guide to the WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel
Reaching the health-related Millennium Development Goals will be impossible without strong and adequately staffed national health systems. Nevertheless,...
The WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (the Code) was updated in 2026, and this document is superceded by...
Support & safeguard
News
WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel,...
Q&A (August 2026)
Events
Resolutions
- WHA79.12: WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (2026)
- WHA74.14 - Protecting, safeguarding and investing in the health and care workforce (2021)
- WHA64.6: Health workforce strengthening (2011)
- WHA 63.16: WHO Global Code of Practice on the International Recruitment of Health Personnel (2010)
- WHA57.19: International migration of health personnel: a challenge for health systems in developing countries (2004)
International platform – mobility
The international migration of health workers is increasing. Over the last decade, the number of migrant doctors and nurses within OECD countries has increased by 60%. Future projections in economic demand and supply of health workers point to a continuing acceleration in the international migration of health workers.
Patterns of health worker mobility are also growing increasingly complex. There is growing evidence of substantial intraregional, South–South, and North–South movement, to complement better understood movement from the Global South to the Global North. Temporary migration, as well as registration and employment in multiple jurisdictions, is also becoming common. Health professional education has itself globalized, with increasing scale and complexity of student movement. More effective management of human mobility has risen to the top of the international agenda.
The Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health: Workforce 2030 and the report of the High Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth (“Commission Report”), Working for Health and Growth, further evidences the desire from states and policy-makers to specifically understand and address health worker mobility flows, with a view to maximize benefits from such movement through multi-stakeholder dialogue and international cooperation.
The Commission report, while calling for countries to do more to achieve greater self-sufficiency and sustainability in domestic supply, emphasizes that the international mobility of health workers, if appropriately governed and adverse effects addressed, can deliver numerous benefits. As an immediate action therefore , the Commission calls on ILO, OECD, and WHO to work with relevant partners to establish an international platform on health worker mobility to advance dialogue, knowledge and cooperation in the area.
Vision - To maximize the benefits and mitigate adverse effects from health labour mobility through elevated dialogue, knowledge, and cooperation.
Objective - To facilitate robust policy dialogue and action on health labour mobility through strengthened monitoring, country support, knowledge generation and sharing, and through strengthened support to implementation of the WHO Global Code and relevant ILO Conventions and Recommendations.
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