• World Health Day is celebrated on 7th April each year.
• Theme is to ‘Support nurses and midwives’.
• World Health Assembly has also designated year 2020 as the International Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.
• On this Occassion "State of the world’s nursing 2020 report", developed by the World Health Organization(WHO) in partnership with the International Council of Nurses and the global Nursing Now campaign, and with the support of governments and wider partners, provides a compelling case on the value of the nursing workforce globally. 

Highlights of the first ever report ‘State of the world’s nursing 2020’

• The global nursing workforce is 27.9 million. This indicates an increase of 4.7 million in the total stock over the period 2013–2018.
• The global shortage of nurses, estimated to be 6.6 million in 2016, had decreased slightly to 5.9 million nurses in 2018.
• The countries accounting for the largest shortages (in numerical terms) in 2018 included Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan.
• The world does not have a global nursing workforce commensurate with the universal health coverage and SDG targets
• To address the shortage by 2030 in all countries, the total number of nurse graduates would need to increase by 8% per year on average.
• Globally, the nursing workforce is relatively young, but there are disparities across regions, with substantially older age structures in the American and European regions.
• The majority of countries reported that the minimum duration for nurse education is a three-year programme.
• Nursing remains a highly gendered profession with associated biases in the workplace. Approximately 90% of the nursing workforce is female.

Suggestions

• Countries affected by shortages will need to increase funding to educate and employ at least 5.9 million additional nurses.
• Countries should strengthen capacity for health workforce data collection, analysis and use.
• Nurse mobility and migration must be effectively monitored and responsibly and ethically managed.
• Nurse education and training programmes must graduate nurses who drive progress in primary health care and universal health coverage.
• Planners and regulators should optimize the contributions of nursing practice. Such as ensuring that nurses in primary health care teams are working to their full scope of practice.
• Adequate staffing levels and workplace and occupational health and safety must be prioritized and enforced, with special efforts paid to nurses operating in fragile, conflict-affected and vulnerable settings.
• Countries should deliberately plan for gender-sensitive nursing workforce policies.