This document serves as a briefing paper, produced by the Centre for Social and Economic Progress
(CSEP) and the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH) under
the umbrella of The Asian Collective for Health Systems (TACHS).
It collates a broad spectrum of data and information, based mostly on a non-systematic desk review
of academic and grey literature, to feed into discussions about how countries in South and
Southeast Asia can contribute to and improve the system of global health governance; ensure that
South and Southeast Asian needs and perspectives are better accommodated within the system of
global health governance; reduce their reliance on external funding and expertise; enable more
effective pooling of resources and expertise at the regional level; promote greater intra-regional
health equity; and contribute to more effective regional governance and cooperation in South and
Southeast Asia.
The brief is structured as follows. It begins with the World Health Organization (WHO), with
particular attention to its two regional offices in Asia: The Regional Office for Southeast Asia (SEARO)
and the Regional Office for the Western Pacific (WPRO), as well as a deeper look at a selection of
Country Offices. It then turns to the development banks, specifically the World Bank (WB), the Asian
Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Subsequently, it
presents some data on development assistance for health (DAH), followed by a review of emerging
platforms influential in global health agenda-setting such as the G77, the G20, and BRICS. Next, the
document considers regional governance mechanisms, namely the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (ASEAN), the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), and the Bay of
Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). It then presents
some information about regional non-governmental networks. The document ends with a
concluding section and key takeaway messages.
