[Excerpt from authors] In March 2007, the Director General of the World Health Organization, Dr Margaret Chan, launched the Task Force for Scaling Up Education and Training for Health Workers, under the auspices of the Global Health Workforce Alliance (GHWA), to look at these critical issues and report back with solid recommendations and guiding principles for action. Its report - Scaling Up, Saving Lives - calls for a rapid and significant scaling up of the education and training of health workers as part of a broader effort to strengthen health systems. It highlights the importance of training to meet a country's own health needs and the great opportunity represented by the increased use of community- and mid-level workers.