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In attendance:
Proceedings: 2. The Website of APHEN (www.unescap.org.aphen/form.html) will be updated and maintained at least for the time being by the the Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. At present the website server is with UN-ESCAP. 3. Additionally it was proposed that there should be an APHEN publication: APHENetwork. All country representatives are invited to send news, current issues, papers for publication and to join the editorial team. 4. APHEN will also link with iHEA and provide information to iHEA for wide circulation. To achieve this APHEN members need to help provide information via APHEN or directly to iHEA. This can be done by sending information to Kaemthong's e-mail address: ikaemtho@chula.ac.th It was proposed that APHEN became an institutional/organizational member of iHEA so that all APHEN members can have the right to concessional fees for iHEA activities. This matter has been proposed to iHEA and is under consideration. Further announcement will be made in due course. 5. The 2nd APHEN Forum is to be held in the year 2000. The 1st APHEN Forum was held in Bangkok Thailand so it was agreed that the 2nd one should be held in one of other members' countries (Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Lao, Malaysia, New Zealand, Maldives, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan,Vietnam, Pacific Island nations). The Health Economics Unit, Bangladesh was originally approached to consider holding the 2nd APHEN Forum. Representatives from Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Nepal also expressed interest in holding the conference. The most important aspect is the funding for the organisation of the Forum and participants from some countries. The decision on the site of the Forum has yet to be confirmed and depends on the funding. Since HEU has a formal base of the local network in health economics and basic funding of its activities, these are advantages to host the forthcoming Forum. This can be done in conjunction with its annual conference next year which is in the second or third week of July. In such a case, the participants can have the double benefit of attending both events. However, we still need to explore additional funding. All suggestions and contribution will be most welcome. Country representatives were encouraged to form teams to organise sessions on specific issues or various topics as appropriate for APHEN 2000. Some topics/sessions and co-ordinators/countries) were suggested:
But all these topics are still tentative and not yet comprehensive. They can be changed according to the co-ordinator. We still wait for more ideas and initiatives. We hope that whoever is responsible as a co-ordinator for each topic/session will organize a team locally and from other APHEN countries to make presentation in the session. For example, for the session on the Economics issues of Roles of NGO, B.R. Pande from Nepal will organize presenters from Bangladesh, India, the Philippines; HEU may organize presenters from Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam in relation to Equity in Health session. Other topics earlier identified are: Financing Long-term Care (Phua Kai Hong), Improved Public Health Performance (Geoffrey Lieu, Hong Kong), Impacts of economics crisis on health sector (Bong Min Yang, Korea). Further suggestions recently received for the theme and specific sessions are "Health Care Financing for the 21 Century: What will do for health? (by Geoffrey Lieu, Hong Kong); Economics evaluation of medical technology/health interventions (by Bong Min Yang from Korea); Health Sector Reform in Developing Countries, Rescue or Efficiency?; Health Manpower Planning in Developing Countries: Efficiency or Equity? (by Agus Suwandono). Further suggestions, comments would be most welcome. It was requested that the donors be contacted for supporting
the Kaemthong will write to WHO/HQ, SEARO, WPRO and other funding agencies like the World Bank, DFID to seek support. All participants are requested to contact the relevant agencies for their support. Suggested key health economists and specific topics for presentation: :- Thomas Getzen, President, iHEA Prospects of iHEA and
APHEN networking An Essay Competition for students will be organised. Suggested
list of judges: The meeting concluded with a vote of thanks to Kaemthong Indaratna for the organization of the meeting. Original draft by B R Pande |