Europe’s dependence on foreign-trained doctors and nurses has cross-border ripple effects, finds new WHO/Europe report.
This article is published in association with United Nations.
The UN World Health Organization (WHO) issued a warning on Wednesday that southern and eastern European countries are losing large numbers of doctors and nurses who are leaving to work abroad.
A new UN health agency report also shows that in Europe in 2023, six in 10 medics trained outside the region, while the number is even higher for nurses.
In light of these findings – and the fact that many western and northern European countries are becoming “heavily dependent” on these foreign workers – the WHO is calling for fairer and more sustainable health worker migration.
Healthcare gaps at home
WHO’s Dr Natasha Azzopardi-Muscat said that every migrating doctor or nurse leaves a “strain on families and on the national health systems they left behind.”
By 2030, Europe is expected to have a shortfall of almost one million health workers, the UN agency said.
It noted that Romania has managed to reduce the number of doctors leaving the country in recent years, from 1,500 to 461, mainly by offering better pay, training and working conditions.
‘Innovation index’ shows Switzerland top, as China makes the top 10
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Switzerland, Sweden, the United States, the Republic of Korea and Singapore are the world’s most innovative countries.
That’s according to UN agency the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO, whose Global Innovation Index 2025 shows that the UK, Finland, the Netherlands, Denmark are also in the top 10 – along with China for the first time.
In other findings, WIPO said that growth in innovation investments is slowing, “clouding” future forecasts about intellectual property trends.
Middle-income climbers
Around 80 indicators are used for the UN report, ranging from spending on research and development, venture capital deals, hi-tech exports and intellectual property filings.
The latest WIPO report shows that middle-income economies led by China, India (38th) and Türkiye (43rd) – have continued to climb the innovation ladder by turning ideas into reality.
In the last five years, though, it’s Saudi Arabia (46th), Qatar (48th), Brazil (52nd), Mauritius (53rd), Bahrain (62nd) and Jordan (65th), that have made the fastest progress.
Report finds Nigeria failed to protect women and girls
Nigeria has failed to do enough to prevent targeted attacks on schools, fallen short on criminalising abduction and marital rape – and on protecting schoolgirls from abduction and stigmatisation, according to a new report from a key body of independent UN experts who monitor discrimination against women.
The repeated failure “amounts to systematic and grave violations,” of women’s and girls’ rights, said chair of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), Nahla Haidar, on Wednesday.
The report was published on Wednesday after a mission to the country in December 2023, where committee members met with officials from various departments and agencies, armed forces and police representatives – and victims of abduction.
Chibok abduction
The mission initially received information about the mass abduction of 276 girls in Chibok school by Boko Haram in 2014. Eighty-two escaped, 103 were released in exchange for prisoners, while at least 91 are either still in captivity or their fate is unknown.
The CEDAW delegation was the first UN body to have visited the school since the abduction, according to school staff.
“The abduction of the Chibok girls was not an isolated tragedy, but part of a series of mass abductions targeting schools and communities,” said Ms. Haidar.
She added that “at least 1,400 students have been kidnapped from schools since the Chibok abduction.”
Sunscreen restored to WHO essential medicines list hailed as lifeline for people with albinism
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Independent UN experts have welcomed the World Health Organization’s (WHO) decision to restore sunscreen to its model lists of essential medicines – those that meet the priority health needs of populations.
They described the move as “an important development in the long struggle to draw attention to, and find practical, effective and sustainable remedies for the needless deaths caused by skin cancer among persons with albinism.”
Skin cancer is the leading cause of death for people with albinism worldwide — a preventable tragedy, the experts stressed, linked to poor awareness, limited access to sunscreen, and slow institutional and governmental responses.
Lifesaver
They emphasised that the WHO’s decision could “transform the everyday lives of persons with albinism, including life expectancy,” but warned that its impact will depend on governments’ political will and commitment to integrating sunscreen into national health systems and supply chains.
“Provision of and access to sunscreen for persons with albinism is not a cosmetic exercise. It is a fundamental human right,” the experts said.
The WHO’s decision is also consistent with States’ international obligations to prevent foreseeable human rights harms arising from climate change and to protect those most disproportionately affected.
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