These articles were presented in the conference “Responsible governance for improved human resources
for health: making the right choices” organised by the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam in 2010. In this
conference, 181 people from 31 countries participated to discuss and exchange their experiences with governancerelated
issues for HRH. Five governance areas were distinguished:
“development of a vision and policies for HRH”; “aid effectiveness”; “regulatory mechanisms”; “participation
and voice” and “governance in competency development in higher education for public health”. During the conference,
the following definition of governance was used as the entry point because it puts actors, their roles and
power at the center: “Governance is about the rules that distribute roles and responsibilities among government,
providers and beneficiaries and that shape the interactions among them. Governance encompasses authority, power,
and decision-making in the institutional arenas of civil society, politics, policy, and public administration” [9]. The
conference demonstrated that many efforts have been undertaken at country level to analyse and bring to the
fore governance related issues in HRH policy formulation and implementation, and to describe efforts to improve
governance structures and strategies in HRH [10].