Health security and economic growth in the Asia-Pacific

Volume 10 Number 11 November 10 - December 7 2014

Although Indonesia has made progress in improving its health system, it still faces serious health challenges. One of Australia’s key priorities in Indonesia is to strengthen long-term public health policy, planning and budgeting.
Although Indonesia has made progress in improving its health system, it still faces serious health challenges. One of Australia’s key priorities in Indonesia is to strengthen long-term public health policy, planning and budgeting.

 

The 2014 Global Health Forum, an annual event hosted by the Nossal Institute for Global Health, explored Australia’s role in addressing health challenges in the Asia-Pacific region in the context of the government’s new foreign aid policy. By Elizabeth Brumby

The world’s poorest and most vulnerable people bear the greatest burden of disease and ill health, with infectious diseases, complications from pregnancy and non-communicable diseases among the major causes of death in low-income countries. Aid from international communities has long been a tool in improving the health of the world’s poor, in tackling global health threats and in stabilising regions. 

This year’s Global Health Forum, hosted by the Nossal Institute for Global Health in October, addressed a range of topics relating to Australia’s role in providing aid for health programs and policies in the Asia-Pacific region. 

Leading international and local speakers – including David Evans, Director of Health Systems Financing at the World Health Organization, Soonman Kwon from Seoul National University and Helen McFarlane from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade – tackled some of the major strategic challenges facing Australian aid delivery in the Asia-Pacific. This formed part of a larger debate related to the development of a new health strategy for our foreign aid program.

Peter Annear, health economist and health financing specialist at the Nossal Institute, says a key message that emerged from the Forum is that a major challenge in terms of health security and economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region is poverty. 

“The Forum looked at how issues relating to health security and economic growth in our region present challenges for Australian aid, what we mean when we talk about health security, and what some of the current and future health priorities are for Australian aid,” Associate Professor Annear says.

He says health security is increasingly high on the international agenda, and is a very important part of Australian foreign aid policy. With the onset of globalisation, public health is recognised as important for foreign policy, and similarly, foreign aid can be viewed as an increasingly important mechanism to protect public health and support regional stability.

“When we talk about health security, I look at it in two ways,” Associate Professor Annear says. “One aspect is the health of populations. Health security is a matter of having healthy populations capable of supporting their families, working well, having high productivity and good economic growth. Healthy populations are secure populations, and that helps everyone in the region.

“The other aspect, of course, is the potential health threats to Australia from communicable diseases in the Asia-Pacific region, including a number of emerging diseases and epidemics. We need to help countries stop these at their origin.” 

Associate Professor Annear says that with poverty emerging as the main threat to human health in the Asia-Pacific region a key focus for Australian aid needs to be on health systems and health financing. 

“An important challenge for our region is how to deliver affordable healthcare. In many of the countries where we work, the spending on healthcare is often the biggest financial burden on families – and it’s the one thing that is most responsible for sending people into poverty.”

One such example is Indonesia. Although Indonesia has made progress in improving its health system, the country still faces serious health challenges, with high rates of mortality from childbirth, a shortage of trained healthcare providers, high rates of HIV and a lack of access to essential infrastructure like water and sanitation affecting much of the population. 

“The problem with poverty, with family debt incurred for healthcare, and catastrophic health expenditures: these are the things in Indonesia and other countries that are holding back economic growth, national development and in particular, a stronger health system and improved health status,” Associate Professor Annear says.

 

“Australia is very well positioned to play an important role in those areas. We play a key role in assisting the Indonesian government, as well as Indonesian institutions and agencies, to develop that social health protection system.”