This book draws on research to formulate implications for the development and evaluation of international healthcare projects carried out in Korea’s Ganghwa county and Nepal’s Tikapur region. The progress and
achievements of primary health care projects in both regions are in line with the spirit of the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978 on primary health care. Therefore, this book provides evidence-based information to improve health through health promotion, protection, and disease prevention at population and individual levels to achieve primary health care goals particularly in developing countries.
The subtitle of this book, “Tikapur Nepal Meets Ganghwa Republic of Korea!” may sound very unfamiliar to the readers. Tikapur in Nepal and Ganghwa in the Republic of Korea are unrelated regions, very far away from each other, about 3,900 kilometers on a geographic straight distance. However, the two regions can rediscover that they have a deep connection beyond coincidence in a historical time. In other words, Tikapur in Nepal is the first region where Yonsei University conducted international development as a community health project with support from the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) for five years since 2011. However, since 1960s, Korea has received public and private aid from the World Health Organization (WHO), and several foreign countries, and has been implementing community health projects in medically vulnerable regions. During those days, Ganghwa was a region where Yonsei University College of Medicine successfully carried out a community health project with private aid funds from Germany and the United States. The Korean version has already been selected as the 2020 Sejong Book (Outstanding Award of This Year) in the science & technology genre by the Publication Industry Promotion Agency of Korea, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
The world is now under a new vision with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Universal Health Coverage (UHC) is a platform for delivering on the health-related goals in SDGs. I believe that primary health care is central to delivering promise of high-quality universal health coverage. The aim of modern health system is to strengthen public health with universal coverage and access to all irrespective of one’s ability to pay for it. I hope this book provides governments and policy makers with an overview of key issuese of quality in primary health care and the importance of achieving broad public health goals within universal health coverag. In addition, I believe this book will be a rich resource material for researchers, scholars,
program practitioners, and general readers. I hope it will further contribute to strengthening primary health care system in developing countries.

Chun-Bae Kim

MD, MPH, MEP, PhD, is a Professor of the Department of Preventive Medicine, Yonsei University Wonju College of Medicine in Korea. He participated in the Ganghwa Community Demonstration Health Project as a director of Ganghwa Community Health Institute from 1994 to 1995, and in the Project for Health Services Improvement in Tikapur, Nepal (HIT project) as a project coordinator from 2011 to 2015. Since 2012, he has taken a lead role in implementing the Hongcheon County Hypertension and Diabetes Registration and Education Center initiative which has brought together community medicine and primary health care. Till now, he has published more than 140 articles (including Korean and International Journals), focusing on issues such as global health, community medicine, systematic review, and health policy evaluation, etc.

So-Yoon Kim

MD, MPH, PhD, is a Professor of Division of Medical Law and Ethics, Department of Humanities and Social Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine in Korea. Now, she is working as a director of the Asian Institute for Bioethics and Health Law (WHO Collaborating Center for Health Law & Bioethics) and Division of International Health Science, Graduate School of Public Health, Yonsei University. Also, she is serving as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Global Health Science (JGHS) in the Korean Society of Global Health.