The conference brought together representatives from health, defence, and foreign affairs sectors in all ten ASEAN Member States, regional and international experts, and ASEAN’s Dialogue and Development partners, to discuss a multi-sectoral approach to advancing biosecurity and health-security efforts in the ASEAN region. This event focused on catalyzing multi-sectoral collaboration to implement the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Strengthening Regional Biosafety and Biosecurity. It aimed to strengthen health-security governance, foster new norms to address biological threats and pandemics, and enhance ASEAN’s capacities to manage biological threats, respond to health emergencies, and support global health security efforts, in collaboration with the ASEAN Health Sector and Global Affairs Canada and in alignment with the Mitigation of Biological Threats (MBT) in the ASEAN Region Program.The adoption of the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Strengthening Regional Biosafety and Biosecurity at the 44th and 45th ASEAN Summits in October 2024 marked a critical milestone in enhancing ASEAN’s readiness to address biological threats, whether natural, accidental or deliberate in nature. The Declaration’s eight commitments emphasized the necessity of concrete multi-sectoral collaboration at the health-security interface and the integration of biosafety and biosecurity initiatives across health and other sectors. This dialogue leveraged the MBT platform and community to start the conversation on operationalizing the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration through cross-sector collaboration.
Canada’s Weapons Threat Reduction Program (WTRP) has supported ASEAN Health Cooperation for over a decade through the MBT Program, significantly enhancing ASEAN’s capacity to mitigate all manner of biological threats, respond to emergencies, and manage disease outbreaks. Some of the key mechanisms developed through the MBT for strengthening capabilities to prevent, detect and respond to biological threats are the ASEAN Emergency Operation Centre (EOC) Network, ASEAN BioDiaspora Virtual Centre (ABVC), and ASEAN+3 Field Epidemiology Training Network (FETN). These mechanisms can be further leveraged by ASEAN Member States and health security stakeholders in the implementation of the ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration.
This report captures the essence of these discussions, summarizing the main themes, key issues, and the recommendations that emerged. The insights gained from this event are intended to inform future policies and interventions, with the aim of strengthening multi-sectoral collaboration on biosecurity and health-security in the ASEAN region.