Greater Mekong Subregion Health Cooperation Strategy 2019–2023
This 5-year strategy identifies operational priorities for health cooperation for 2019-2023. It is a product of extensive consultations with members of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Working Group on Health Cooperation, GMS government stakeholders, and other GMS partners. The Ministry of Health of each GMS country has endorsed this strategy. The strategic pillars and programs reflect the priorities identified by stakeholders, which are backed by a robust situational analysis and aligned with national health plans.
Consistent with the GMS Program's mandate, the strategy focuses on health issues that are regional in nature and require collective action to address. The strategy is intended as a tool to guide programming and mobilize new project financing toward the realization of GMS health stakeholders' vision for health cooperation.
Health security as a regional public good
This tackles the subregion's vulnerability to acute public health events. Ensuring robust national health systems with capacity to prevent, detect and respond to transnational health threats is the cornerstone of health security.
Health impacts of connectivity and mobility
This responds to health challenges stemming from an increasingly interconnected subregion. Strengthening health systems in border areas where migrant and mobile populations pass and reside is an entry point for programming. This also includes integrating a health impact assessment during project planning and implementation of urban and transport infrastructure projects.
Health workforce development
This builds on the capacity of the Greater Mekong Subregion's human resources to address common health challenges. Strong leadership in turn opens opportunities for intraregional capacity building, utilizing the subregions' depth of health human resource and health programming experience to tackle shared health issues and enhance country efforts to attain Sustainable Development Goal targets.