Countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion aim for Sustainable Development Goals for health. Through the Working Group on Health Cooperation, GMS countries are taking comprehensive, coordinated and proactive approaches to address regional health issues.
The Greater Mekong Subregion still experiences high incidence of communicable diseases and drug-resistant microorganisms. GMS countries also suffer from inefficient health systems due to lack of synergies, economies of scale, and scope; and there are few common solutions to common health problems.
The Working Group on Health Cooperation seeks to address collective action problems of regional health investments and limited resources for health that tend to prioritize national investments.
Regional health cooperation initiatives in the Greater Mekong Subregion focus on three strategic pillars:
Strategic Pillar 1: Health security as a regional public good 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.
Strategic Pillar 2: Health impacts of connectivity and mobility responds to health challenges stemming from an increasingly interconnected GMS. Strengthening health systems in border areas where migrant and mobile populations pass and reside is an entry point for programming. Also includes. integrating health impact assessment during project planning and implementation of GMS urban and transport infrastructure projects.
Strategic Pillar 3: Health workforce development builds on the subregion’s existing human resource capacity 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.
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After more than 20 years, the Working Group on Human Resource Development was restructured in 2017 to focus on health, given the strategic importance of regional cooperation in this area.
Consequent to the review of the GMS Institutional Framework in 2016 and a separate review of the Strategic Framework and Action Plan for Human Resource Development in the GMS 2013–2017, GMS ministers endorsed the creation of the Working Group on Health Cooperation in 2017.
Human resource development, however, continues to be an important sector in the Greater Mekong Subregion. At an extraordinary meeting of the Working Group on Human Resource Development in Bangkok on 4 July 2017, participants agreed on the following key points:
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Prevention and awareness-raising programs help address increasing HIV/AIDS transmission risks as Myanmar’s borders open and mobility grows with the construction of new roads.
The Thirteenth Meeting of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Working Group on Human Resource Development (WGHRD-13) was held in Ha Noi, Viet Nam on 29-30 October 2014 with the theme “Strengthening Human Resource Development Cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion.”
This document summarizes the outcome of the 12th meeting of the Greater Mekong Subregion Working Group on Human Resource Development in Bangkok, Thailand, on 31 October-1 November 2013.
This document outlines the Greater Mekong Subregion human resource development strategy.
This report highlights issues on labor migration in the Greater Mekong Subregion and offers recommendations toward increasing social protection for migrants, strengthening capacity and legal framework, and enhancing knowledge management mechanisms.
MANILA, PHILIPPINES (12 February 2013) – The Asian Development Bank and Government of Australia are providing an extra $37 million for a project improving roads and tackling HIV and human trafficking risks along a key coastal route linking Viet Nam and Cambodia.
This document summarizes the outcome of the 11th meeting of the GMS Working Group on Human Resource Development in Yangon, Myanmar on 1-2 November 2012.
MANILA, PHILIPPINES (31 October 2012) - The Asian Development Bank is providing $20 million in grants and loans to support Lao People's Democratic Republic and Viet Nam prevent the spread of HIV infections in 23 border provinces where risks are growing due to increased population movement and commercial activities along economic corridors.
This series features the scholarly works under the Phnom Penh Plan for Development Management, a region-wide capacity building program of the Asian Development Bank that supports knowledge products and services.
The establishment of cross-border economic zones in the border areas of the People's Republic of China and its neighboring countries in the Greater Mekong Subregion has recently emerged as a strategy for further promoting trade and investments in the subregion. Unlike a border economic zone (BEZ), which is confined within the national territory, a CBEZ is an economic zone traversing a transnational area and requiring a unified set of policies and incentives in such areas as finance, taxation, investment, trade, and customs regulation.
