The Global Learning Collaborative for Health Systems Resilience, driven by ACCESS Health International and supported by The Rockefeller Foundation hosted a side event at the coveted Prince Mahidol Awards Conference (PMAC) 2023, held in Bangkok between January 24-29, 2023.

Titled “Learning Health Systems to Face the Confluence of Crises “, the side meeting took place on January 24. Included under the sub-theme 1 of ‘Addressing the Nexus of Climate Change, Environment, Biodiversity, and Health Emergencies’ the session emphasized the need to cultivate learning health systems globally and fostering cross-country collaboration in the world’s collective fight against health shocks and other social, economic, and geopolitical crises.

Discussions at the side event were driven by international experts from the fields of health systems, public health and epidemiology, global governance, and health financing among others.  The experts who spoke at the event included Mr. Alexo Esperato, Senior Health Specialist, Asian Development Bank, Mr. Eric Arndt, Director, Asia Region Office, The Rockefeller Foundation,Ms. Diah Satyani Saminarsih, Founder and CEO, CISDI, Mr. Rajat Khosla, Director, United Nations University International Institute for Global Health (UNU-IIGH), Dr. Somsak Chunharas, Former Deputy Minister for the Ministry of Public Health, President of the National Health Foundation, and Dr. Thaksaphon (Mek) Thamarangsi, Coordinator (Integrated Health Services), WHO Regional Office for South-East Asia.

The key areas of discussion at the session were: a) The meaning of learning systems in general and in the context of health systems in particular b) Expansion of the concept from ‘People’s Health’ to ‘One Health’ to ‘Planetary Health’ c) Case studies to exemplify various approaches in building learning health and other systems, and d) the challenges involved and possible solutions for future learning and collaboration