Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 12/2010

Innovations in Cooperation: A Guidebook on Bilateral Agreements to Address Health Worker Migration

Ibadat S. Dhillon, Margaret E. Clark, Robert Kapp

May 2010

Aspen Institute

Abstract

There is limited international structure to manage the ever important phenomenon of human migration and its associated challenges. This is particularly true with respect to the international migration of health workers, where bilateral agreements between sending and receiving nations have been repeatedly and urgently called for in the context of a global health workforce crisis. There remains, however, significant lack of clarity on the precise role, form, and content bilateral agreements should take to serve a health-related purpose. This Guidebook, including presentation of two model bilateral agreements, aims to provide guidance to further international cooperation around the critical and highly sensitive area of health worker migration.