Regional Meetings at the World Cancer Congress

The seven Regional Meetings gathered groups ranging from 30 to over 60 participants. This unique platform developed for and by the members facilitated strengthening collaboration at a regional level. Each meeting allowed UICC’s diverse members to connect, share regional problematic and exchange best practices.

During the African Regional Meeting, the current challenges and priorities of the region were addressed. This meeting focused on the importance of funding and more inclusive gender-dialogues in African cancer control programs. A focus on regional solutions and making sustainable changes that will allow clinical positions to be staffed and stable for a long-term control were some of the discussions that were held in this meeting.

In the Regional Meeting for North America, data in understanding trends in cancer regarding population health was shared with the participants. According to the speakers, the best way to address the cancer burden in developed countries is through prevention and early detection programmes. This meeting also conveyed the importance of funding for prevention and accessibility of primary screening being crucial.

The Regional Meeting for Asia-Pacific discussed a need to be more connected and to organise regional meetings for future collaborations. Shwe Yaung Hnin Si Cancer Foundation, from Myanmar, specifically highlighted the need for NGOs, government and civil society collaborations and for improved cancer awareness amongst their region. Representatives from different countries expressed their strong interest to collaborate with their regional neighbours on cancer control and leverage mutually beneficial resources.

During the Regional Meeting for the Eastern Mediterranean Region, the lack of screening due to limited resources for the general population was discussed. In a region with a high percentage of Breast cancer, it addresses the major concern of early detection services. Concerns were raised about the different organisations in the region fighting each other and not wanting to collaborate on learning networking skills in order to create local and regional coordinated action. On the brighter note a success story was shared. For Afghanistan, cancer control efforts were successful and received a budget from the Afghanistan Ministry of Finance making a drastic change from 2014 when the Ministry of Public Health in Afghanistan didn't recognise cancer as a disease. 

In the Regional Meeting Russia, CIS and Balkan Region, the directors of all of the countries represented joined together to give the participants the current updates of the strengthening health systems in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan even shared their plans for palliative care in the country and their Cancer registry which started in 2014.

The Latin American Regional Meeting focused on the challenges faced by the different countries of the region related to the necessity to improve the collection of data in a more systematic way and the needs to raise more awareness amongst the population to lead more efficient advocacy actions. The speakers highlighted the importance of investing in training the healthcare professionals. A call for a stronger regional collaboration with all the stakeholders concerned by the fight against cancer was launched, in the view of the upcoming World Cancer Leaders’ Summit which will take place in Mexico in November 2017.

Lastly, during the Regional Meeting Europe, the CanCon Work Package 8, which aims to elaborate policy recommendations and tools based on the best practices and knowledge in order to improve quality in survivorship and rehabilitation planning in Europe was introduced. The ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines was also introduced. Its objective is to assist practitioners in appropriate clinical decision making, to improve quality of healthcare and outcomes for patients, to influence national policies for efficient allocation of resources and for better delivery systems. The case study from Italy stressed the importance of efficient national policy level work and informed patients as key to their success against cancer.

These seven interactive sessions included country perspectives from key member organisation representatives. The call for engagement in UICC’s global advocacy and capacity building priorities was met with strong support from the participants who also welcomed the new regionalisation plans. They shared a common interest for expanding the UICC network within their respective regions and raising the voice of their cancer control communities. Detailed meeting reports for each of the Regional Meeting will be available.

Interested in joining our international growing network of over 1,000 members in 162 countries? Discover all the benefits of becoming a UICC Member here, and apply for membership here.