In line with their responsibilities as signatories to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), many low- and lower-middle income countries are working hard to provide better health and well-being for their people. As governments struggle to keep up with rising health expenditures, especially in resource-constrained settings, the need for evidence-informed decision-making for improved health provisioning is only growing more critical. There has been expanding interest in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) as an important method of guiding these policy decisions, especially in terms of priority-setting and designing benefits packages, which effectively and equitably serve the entire populace.

In January 2020, the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and the Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP), Ministry of Public Health, Thailand, came together to convene the annual HTA training and policy symposium in Manila, Philippines, as a follow-up to the successful run of the workshop in Singapore last year. Working closely alongside their local partner — the Philippine Department of Health — and encouraged by their commitment to Universal Health Coverage (UHC), which was formalised into legislation in the first quarter of 2019, this three-day event was conducted as part of the ongoing effort to build capacity in HTA. The Philippine UHC Law is one of the few that lays explicit emphasis on HTA as a means of decision-making within its mandate, helping to recognise and institutionalise it, as well as providing legal basis for its application.

A total of 56 participants attended the workshop and symposium, representing the private sector, government agencies, non-governmental organisations and academic institutions from countries around the world. The majority were from Philippines and others from Singapore, Malaysia and Senegal. Teaching faculty from SSHSPH and HITAP, together with guest lecturers from Korea and Japan, extensively discussed health systems in these countries with specific reference to HTA developments in Asia.