Although the poorest countries are the most affected by the scarcity of health workers, most of the countries in the world are affected by problems related to their health workforce. The availability of an appropriate number of health workers is an important (if not the most important) issue to solve, but not the only one. The productivity of the existent resources, the appropriate skill mix (i.e. allocation throughout different occupations), the geographical distribution of the health workers according to the population needs, and the quality of the services delivered by them are just a few examples of other issues to consider, generally neglected by the decision makers. As Dussault and Dubois stated [[7], p.14], ‘ [t]he lack of explicit policies for HRH development has produced, in most countries, imbalances that threaten the capacity of health care systems to attain their objectives ’ .