Feature Article – A message from Cary Adams, CEO of UICC - December 2017

Dear Members of UICC,

As we end another year of progress at UICC, I wanted to say thank you to every UICC member, partner, collaborator and individual who has worked with us in 2017. Once again, I sit in awe at the end of a year of significant progress for the cancer community. The highlight being the passing of a Cancer Resolution at the World Health Assembly in May which committed countries around the world to place cancer control as a critical component of their national health strategies. It has taken many years of hard work to secure this resolution. It complements the progress we have made working with our NCD Alliance colleagues to place cancer and the other NCDs on the global health and development agenda. It was a proud day indeed to witness the resolution’s adoption at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on 30 May 2017. 

Of course, our advocacy agenda does not stop with the resolution in place, but rather we’re gearing up for greater action! All UICC members and partners must now offer help and guidance to national governments so that their commitments materially change the way in which cancer is addressed country by country. 

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To support this effort, UICC’s Board of Directors has signalled its intent to focus more attention on cancer treatment and care in the next few years, not only working with members around the world, but helping cities drive the changes necessary to treat more people successfully every year. At the World Economic Forum (The Forum) event in Davos in January, UICC, together with the World Bank and the Forum launched the C/Can2025: City Cancer Challenge initiative to help cities with a population greater than one million to improve access to quality cancer treatment and care services. We are now working with four key learning cities: Cali in Colombia, Asunción  in Paraguay, Yangon in Myanmar and Kumasi in Ghana and will scale-up to work with more cities in 2018 through our ‘Challenge Cities’ offer which is now open for calls of expressions of interest.

In February, we witnessed another successful World Cancer Day and it was a real pleasure seeing so many UICC members mark 4 February  in their own country. We enter 2018 with the final year of the ‘We can I can’ campaign and I am sure we will see an ever greater profile for the day with, for example, more buildings lit up orange and blue around the world. Work is already underway for the new campaign for 2019-2021 and we look forward to unveiling it next year. I have had the privilege of seeing the work evolve, and I am very excited about it!

UICC is only as strong as what our members make us. By that, I mean that a growing membership base which interacts with the team in Geneva, supports us in our work and contributes to our activities is critical to the impact we can achieve. We have grown in 2017 to more than 1,060 members and our recent survey results (which we conduct every other year) reveal the progress we have made as a community working together. One third of our members are very satisfied with their membership, up from one quarter in 2015. Highlights of the results were shared last week for you to see where we have made progress and where we need to focus attention in the coming years. Of particular note is that 97% of our members would recommend UICC membership to another cancer organisation – a result we are very proud of.

It is always great to receive external recognition for the work we do and the way we operate as an organisation. We have won two awards in 2017 – the Association Excellence Award for Best Use of Social Media and the International & European Association Award for Membership engagement. Both awards sit proudly on a table in the reception area of our new offices in Geneva which we made our new home in August. We now have very versatile offices which we hope will be used by our many members and partners in future years. We are now based in close proximity to the World Health Organization, the United Nations and in the heart of the area where many country missions are located.

In November in Mexico, we had the privilege to run the World Cancer Leaders’ Summit with our hosts the National Cancer Institute of Mexico (INCan). It was an impressive few days with high-level attendance and a call to action which will encourage cities to step forward to make cancer a priority for their citizens. There were so many inspiring speeches and I would suggest you read the Report produced or watch the videos of the event, all of which are on the new UICC website: www.uicc.org.

Our focus continues to be on our membership. Helping all our members address the issues they face in their own country. To that end, we have invested in more capacity building initiatives in 2017 than in previous years. Our CEO programme has given us regional Leadership in Action meetings and our Young Leaders’ alumni are active making the most of the training and support we can provide to them. We continue to run fellowships globally and have awarded a new round of SPARC grants, which we operate with the support of our partners Pfizer, providing resourcing to 20 projects in 19 countries addressing challenges faced with metastatic breast cancer.

I conclude most years happy with the progress of UICC, our members and partners, but I think 2017 will be defined by our success in seeing a cancer resolution adopted by the World Health Assembly. It will be a priority to build on this in 2018, and I hope all of you will join us in making that happen.

I wish you all season’s greetings.

Cary Adams
Chief Executive Officer
Union for International Cancer Control (UICC)