This special theme issue of the Bulletin of the World Health Organization focuses on retention of health workers in rural and remote areas. Globally, half of the population lives in rural areas but they are only served by less than a quarter of all doctors and less than a third of all nurses. Therefore, providing people in rural areas with access to well trained health workers is a global challenge. It is critically important to succeed in this, particularly in the 57 low- and middle-income countries that are already plagued with critical shortages of health workers.