News
11 July 2014

UN NCD Review

Updates from New York

Header Paragraph

Day 1:

Member States, the UN system, and civil society met at UN Headquarters in New York for the first of the 2-day high-level UN NCD Review.

The Opening session
 
The day started with opening statements from the President of the UN General Assembly, a representative for the UN Secretary-General, WHO Director General Margaret Chan, and UNDP Administrator Helen Clark.

Professor Tezer Kutluk, President-elect of UICC,  also took to the stage to speak on behalf of civil society, about the need for multisectoral coordinated and harmonised national responses to NCDs; the establishment of NCDs at the centre of the post-2015 development agenda; and the urgent need to address the global resource gap in NCDs.

Click here to read Professor Kutluk's full speech

Following the opening remarks, Member States were given the floor to make interventions. Common themes included: Noting the catalytic effects of the 2011 High-level Meeting and Political Declaration, the need to increase the capacity of low- and middle-income countries to respond to the NCD burden, calls for increased action to reduce exposure to NCD risk factors, and the need to embed NCDs firmly within the post-2015 development agenda.

Adoption of the Outcome Document

After the opening plenary, the President of the General Assembly introduced the draft outcome document. We're very pleased to announce that, with one minor amendment, the document was adopted and is now final!
 
Click here to read the final version of the outcome document

Day 2:

Day two of the UN Review on NCDs began with Member State interventions. Following these were two roundtables, including speakers from UN agencies, Member States and civil society.

Roundtable 1 focused on "Strengthening national and regional capacities, including health systems, and effective multisectoral and whole-of-government responses for the prevention and control, including monitoring, of non-communicable diseases” and included civil society panellists Dr Vash Mungal-Singh from the South Africa NCD Alliance and Dr Sandeep Kishore of the Young Professionals' Chronic Disease Network (YP-CDN). Some key recommendations emerged from this roundtable:

    * Ensure strong leadership and commitment on NCDs at the highest political level;
    * Foster policy coherence across government sectors, including health, agriculture, trade, environment;
    * Mobilise a broad coalition of stakeholders to support the NCD response, including people living with or at risk of NCDs;
    * Increase public investment in NCDs at national and international levels
    * Integrate NCDs into development planning processes, and existing platforms for service delivery.

Click here to read the full statement made by Dr Sandeep Kishore.

Roundtable 2 focused on "Fostering and strengthening national, regional and international partnerships and cooperation in support of efforts to address non-communicable diseases", and featured civil society panellists Dr Sania Nishtar, Founder and President of the NGO thinktank, Heartfile; Mr Mario Ottiglio representing the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA). Some key recommendations that came out of this roundtable were:

    * Position and promote NCDs as a priority for the post-2015 development agenda;
    * Establish stronger regulatory frameworks to prevent NCDs, particularly obesity;
    * Provide technical expertise in establishing multisectoral partnerships, to ensure better results;
    * Strengthen the investment case for NCDs, and focus on harnessing domestic resources via tobacco taxation and other proven financing mechanisms;
    * Strengthen the role of civil society in low- and middle-income countries, including national NCD alliances.
 
Follow UICC and the the NCD Alliance on Twitter for more updates and click here for a UN summary of the Review.

Last update

Friday 07 June 2019

Share this page