UICC's actions on cervical cancer

Supporting the cancer community

UICC is supporting its members and national organisations in their respective efforts to advance cervical cancer elimination in their context, and offers the following opportunities.

• Advocacy: UICC has developed online learning activities and resources to strengthen skills and knowledge in advocacy for cervical cancer including the self-guided course on advocacy for cervical cancer elimination in English, French, and Spanish, and a related cervical cancer handbook. It provides tailored guidance to support the development of national advocacy strategies.
• Technical skills and knowledge: UICC leverages its established Fellowships programme to enable individuals to visit another organisations to learn from their experience and develop specialist skills and knowledge in cervical cancer.
• Communications: To assist members around the world in reaching out to media outlets and the public in their countries, UICC prepares news releases, talking points, videos, infographics, social media toolkits and other resources that are available in the cervical cancer resource hub.
• Raising awareness: From 2022-2024, UICC is leveraging World Cancer Day, with its campaign theme, Close the Care Gap, to particularly spotlight the opportunity of cervical cancer elimination, providing individuals and organisations with materials and resources to raise awareness about cervical cancer within their local context.
• Regional Dialogues: In 2022-2023 UICC has organised and leveraged its in-person regional meetings to facilitate discussions and learning across its network on the implementation of the Global Strategy, enabling the sharing of experiences across organisations and individuals working in similar contexts.
• Virtual Dialogues: UICC provides opportunities for individuals from its network to exchange knowledge, experiences and learning across UICC’s community on this topic. Further Virtual Dialogues to be announced soon.
• Project grants: Starting at the end of 2024, UICC will be supporting CSOs in driving progress for HPV vaccination through a new call for grants. 

Driving global impact

In addition, UICC also leverages its global role to raise the profile of key topics within cervical cancer, including engaging in and supporting collaborative efforts, showcasing and highlighting key topics and progress at its global events - the World Cancer Congress, the World Cancer Leaders’ Summit – through its communication channels, and its advocacy work.

• Publications:  UICC has published a series of reports on regional or topical challenges to elimination to inform action, including the specific situation in Africa, the global and national opportunities to finance elimination, and most recently exploring the role of civil society in HPV vaccination.
• Collaboration: UICC also helped to establish the Commonwealth taskforce in May 2021. The taskforce aims to encourage and facilitate cooperation between Commonwealth countries, and support progress towards the 90:70:90 goals outlined in the Global Strategy.

Focus areas

Through its activities above, UICC has brought particular attention to the following topics, although recognising and emphasising across all of these the importance of a holistic approach to elimination, addressing all three pillars of the Strategy.

Primary prevention

Building on current momentum to accelerate access and coverage of the HPV vaccine, UICC has conducted a landscaping to explore and increase understanding of the role played by local CSOs in order to further support efforts to increase access to and uptake of HPV vaccination.

Secondary prevention

As a consortium partner in the SUCCESS project from 2019-2023, funded by Unitaid, and led by Expertise France, UICC worked together with Jhpiego to intensify cervical cancer secondary prevention in Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guatemala and the Philippines. The SUCCESS project (Scale-up Cervical Cancer Elimination with Secondary prevention Strategy) focused upon the implementation and scale-up of innovative technologies (HPV testing, thermal ablation, self-collection) for secondary prevention of cervical cancer. As per the activities described above, UICC leveraged all its platforms and opportunities to support global progress. UICC has built on the investment in these countries to develop, refine and share resources with its wider and global community and contributed to reaching the milestone of a million women screened in LMICs.

Access to treatment and palliative care

UICC is supporting national advocacy across the cervical cancer elimination agenda, including improving access to treatment and palliative care. Specifically, UICC is supporting the Elimination Partnership in the Indo-Pacific for Cervical Cancer (EPICC). As part of EPICC, UICC will provide expertise, networks, and tailored support to civil society through its Cancer Advocates programme. This collaboration aims to strengthen national advocacy for cervical cancer elimination, with a special focus on improving access to treatment and palliative care in the region. 

Financing for elimination

A critical enabling factor to achieve elimination, UICC has commissioned a series of reports, by Thinkwell and the Economist Intelligence Unit, bringing attention to the opportunities and challenges involved in securing financing for elimination, both at the global and national level. These reports bring concrete insights for civil society organisations and key in-country stakeholders to inform evidence-based policy dialogues and to empower them to advocate for the integration of cervical cancer interventions into national health financing frameworks, and within the context of UHC.