Health Security

The Near East and South Asia Center (NESA) Center for Strategic Studies and the Royal Medical Services of Jordan conducted a three-day Health Security workshop 17 - 20 August 2008. The workshop was attended by over fifty civilian and military officials in health-related positions from the United States (NESA, CENTCOM, OSD, Sandia Labs), Jordan, Turkey, and the Palestinian Authority.

Two prominent themes throughout these discussions focused on the interdependence between the health systems of individual nations and the health situation of all nations and the need for greater regional cooperation in order to improve the health security systems of individual nations particularly in response to disasters. As a consequence, priority was given in discussions about how to cooperatively build mutually beneficial national and regional health security capacities.

Health and National Security Workshop

Admin — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:44:14 +0000

The Near East South Asia (NESA) Center for Strategic Studies conducted a two-day “Health and National Security” workshop on 29-30 March 2007. This was an exploratory effort to see how to advance U.S. national security objectives through health care assistance generally and what more can be accomplished in the NESA region specifically. The intent was to initiate a dialogue and assessment on how to leverage U.S. healthcare “overmatch” to deliver strategic policy effects in the NESA region – drawing in part on the lessons learned from the Asian Tsunami and Pakistan earthquake relief efforts. This was a unique program for the NESA Center, lasting only two days and bringing only USG officials to focus on a non-traditional issue, not normally included in our programs.

This initial effort brought together 25 civilian and military officials and a handful of NGO experts from the United States, including several MDs. They all had practical experience in delivering health care assistance abroad, particularly in the NESA region. Entities represented included: OSD, U.S. Central Command, the Centers for Disease Control, Sandia National Labs, the World Health Organization, the F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, and others.