Fostering problem driven collaboration in a development context: The ASEAN study of health workforce governance

Abstract

Transnational challenges such as societal ageing, rapid epidemiological transitions from managing chronic disease and infectious disease such as COVID-19, and environmental vulnerabilities raise urgent concerns for collaborative governance. This study addresses the challenges of monitoring outcomes and accountabilities i n a development context. Problem-driven collaboration, with a focus on identifying urgent, locally defined problems offers a potential solution to designing relevant performance management systems. Based on a case-survey design, the study analyses two collaborative governance networks in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) promoting the mobility of health workers. The analysis draws on 20 (n = 20) in-depth interviews with high-level country delegates and officials and a content analysis of 380 confidential reports from 10 countries in ASEAN. The results provide a deeper understanding of how a problem-driven approach can foster collaborative governance and overcome barriers to policy implementation. Implications for monitoring practices include the role of measuring “felt needs”–perceived gaps in implementation of policy objectives, and how problem-driven collaboration can add value to performance management systems in a development context.