The objective of this paper is to take stock of the available methods and tools for health workforce planning and projections, and to describe the processes and resources needed to undertake such an exercise. Including this introduction, the paper is divided into four sections. In the next section, an overview of workforce projection models and their applications is presented. Then the operationalization of selected models is described in some detail. Lastly, the pathways by which projection results can be optimized to inform decision-making for policies and programmes are discussed. (AU)