An Asia Pacific Meeting was held on June 10-12, 2008 at Bangkok, Thailand organized by the World Health Organization (WHO) South East Asia Region, Western Pacific Region and other partners.

This meeting was a Preparatory Meeting for the Bamako Global Ministerial Forum on Research for Health, which was themed: “Strengthening National Health Research System”, in which the participants agreed on the following:

1. Recognizing the relevance of the recommendations and requests in the 2004 Mexico Statement on health research and the WHA58.34 (58th World Health Assembly) on Ministerial Summit on Health Research.
2. Encouraged by the progress in strengthening national health research systems in some Member States, we are however concerned that, in spite of these efforts, some important recommendations from the Mexico Statement and the WHA58.34 were not achieved by most Member States in the Region.
3. Further concerns that, in the Asia Pacific Region, slow progress in the improvement of national health research systems were observed. Research systems have not yet overcome several key bottlenecks, for example, inadequate resources and investment by Member States, development partners and WHO support health research and research capacity building and strengthening and lack of engagement by stakeholders (including communities, civil societies, funding agencies, media and policymakers) in research and policy processes.
4. In addition, research outputs were often not relevant or delivered in time to make a contribution to policy development. At times, research did not accommodate the changing and emerging health needs as well as other social determinants of health.
5. Realizing that, the root causes of these problems were inadequate political commitments by governments and development partners to allocate adequate resources to health research and research capacity strengthening. Research is not highly valued especially when it does not demonstrate a contribution to policy, implementation and health outcome. As a result, health research was often not well recognized as an integral part of policy processes. There were additional concerns regarding the inadequate coordination among stakeholders for the development of health research systems.
6. Further, there is a lack of understanding and institutional experience in the complexities involved in knowledge transfer and the translation of knowledge to policy development and implementations.
7. Concerns regarding the inadequate public health research especially health policy and systems research, and at times, noting that research did not respond adequately to the demand of the communities and national priorities.
8. We unanimously agreed on the following recommendations to strengthen the Health Research Systems in order to achieve evidence informed health policy decisions:
9. There is a need to establish effective national mechanisms by engaging all relevant stakeholders including civil societies: a) to develop and/or strengthen national health research policies, b) to provide coordination among stakeholders and stewardship, c) to create a conducive environment for health research and development of a research culture, d) to ensure translation of evidence policies, e) to coordinate donors and ensure country ownership of research agendas, and f) which recognizes health is also an outcome of non-health sectors.
10. There is a need to foster political and financial commitments in support of national health research systems by Member States: a) to rapidly achieve at least 2% of the total national health expenditure; b) to achieve at least 5% of health program expenditure from development partners; and c) to achieve at least 5% of WHO overall budget at all levels. There is a need to invest in capacity building, public health and health systems research to achieve health equity as well as to ensure that research contributes to policy development and decisions.
11. The needs of the least developed countries and small island members should be given special consideration.
12. Other potential sources of funding for health research should be investigated, for example, Global Health Initiatives and other relevant regional forums, including the possibility of establishing a Research and Development treaty.
13. Member States and partners should create an enabling environment, with career paths for professional researchers, facilities and access to information, literature and publications; with adequate financial and non financial incentives in order to maintain long-term commitments by health researchers.
14. Member States, in partnership with stakeholders should increase their commitments on research production, management and utilization in order to promote, maintain and restore health of the population in the Region.

Copy of the Bangkok Statement is available for download at the Bamako 2008 website.