In 2023, ASEF PHN partnered with the government of Finland to host a follow-up event to the 2021 online roundtable on “Pandemic and the Economy: Investment for the Future”. The high-level conference titled Pandemic & the Economy 2023: A Pandemic-Resilient Society took place on 6-7 June 2023, in Helsinki, Finland. The participants included senior officials from the public health sector and non-health sectors involved in the COVID-19 response in respective countries across Asia and Europe, as well as experts from academia and NGOs.
The overall aim of this conference was to facilitate a much-needed dialogue between the public health and non-health sectors when deciding on COVID-19-related policies and strategies in different countries. The focus will be on how to best shift from a pandemic response to building a pandemic-resilient society after the initial response. As each country possesses different health, economic, and social infrastructures, no “one-size-fits-all” response is expected. Nonetheless, the conference sought to identify some general guidelines for policy action that can be considered by ASEM Partners for future implementation.
The specific objectives were:
- To bring together officials representing different government portfolios such as Public Health and Economy, as well as other stakeholders, to identify the priorities in order to best address the COVID-19 pandemic, especially after its initial phase.
- To share lessons learned and best practices across Asia and Europe on dealing with the apparent public health-economy trade-off.
- To identify potential actions linked to the points identified above in order to build a pandemic-resilient society; and
- To address the role of the health sector in connecting health and governance during pandemics for better inter-sectoral/international collaboration.
To read the full scope and purpose of the conference, click here
To read the session guides, click here
Conference Outcome
To download the policy brief, click here
The Conference in Pictures
To view the full album, click here
