There is a growing health workforce crisis in many countries. In the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region, the disparity in supply and demand, geographic maldistribution in urban and rural settings and imbalance in the number of different categories of professionals, represent further dimensions of the crisis facing health system development and its health workforce. Human resources for health include trained health professionals as well as non-health professionals working in health systems and those who have gained some caring knowledge and skills and volunteer to support health in families and communities. "The Health Workforce Development Series" represents a major contribution on the part of the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean to the Human resources for Health Decade 2006-2015. It is aimed at supporting Member States of the Region in improving health system performance in general, and the health workforce in particular through boosting institutional capacity building for human resources development. The series is generic, user-friendly and has been specifically designed to meet the special needs of different countries in the Region for rapid yet sustainable health system improvement. Each country can select actions applicable to its own context for health system strengthening.