Event highlights
The Western Pacific Region is home to a rich landscape of technological and social innovation driven by entrepreneurs, communities, and the public sector across 37 countries and areas. Nonetheless, many health innovations have encountered barriers in scaling for impact, and they need support in finding the right public health direction and value, generating evidence to inform policymaking, and establishing an enabling governance framework for scaling up.
Inspired by the promising landscape and the need for further public sector efforts, a Regional Health Innovation Strategy for the Western Pacific, aiming to encourage governments to take a leadership role in health innovation for population well-being, was proposed at RC73.
To draw lessons from Member States’ experiences in health innovation, validate priority areas for actions identified in the draft regional strategy, DSI organized a virtual Member States Consultation from 11-12 May 2023.
During the consultation meeting, Member State delegates, practitioners in public health innovation, and academic researchers from 27 Member States in the Region exchanged their views on the gaps that hinder promising health innovations from reaching a wider impact. Delegates from nine Member States showcased public sector-led innovation and innovation-friendly policy actions. These included multisource-data analytics to inform outbreak response, policy actions to scale up social innovation and systems to cultivate an innovation culture, as well as public-private partnerships to finance innovation and catalyze solutions. Sharing and discussions validated the situation analysis, reinforced recommendations in the strategy draft, and built our confidence in the common vision to support governments in leveraging health innovations to solve problems, accelerate impact, and shape the future of health and well-being.