Breast Cancer programme
UICC’s Breast Cancer programme is designed to respond to the urgent need to accelerate progress in breast cancer.

Strengthen and engage the global breast cancer community
UICC’s Breast Cancer programme is designed to respond to the urgent need to accelerate progress in breast cancer, which is the second most commonly diagnosed cancer in both men and women and the leading cause of death from cancer in women. This comprehensive programme strengthens and engages the global breast cancer community, with the overall goal of contributing to the reduction of premature deaths from breast cancer and improving the quality of life of patients.
Why now?
Despite advances and progress seen in breast cancer in recent years, current data highlight that breast cancer incidence and mortality remain the highest for cancer in women, and that this trend is only going to accelerate in the next 20 years.
Objectives of the programme
Leveraging established UICC Capacity Building programmes and convening platforms, the Breast Cancer programme aims to strengthen the capacity of key breast cancer actors to increase their impact and engage them in support of the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative (GBCI)’s targets.
Through a series of activities and opportunities, the programme aims to deliver the following key outcomes:
- Accelerate the development of breast cancer leaders
- Strengthen organisational capacities of breast cancer organisations, including patient groups
- Support the development of the health workforce in breast cancer
- Support national action on breast cancer in responding to key areas and needs in breast cancer control
- Strengthen networks and collaborations in breast cancer at a national, regional and global level
- Unite the voice of the breast cancer community, including patient groups, to advocate for more effective breast cancer control
The programme builds bridges between a vast array of stakeholders (cancer organisations, patient groups, healthcare providers, private sector, governments and multilateral agencies) at regional and global levels to catalyse engagement towards the WHO GBCI targets, with a focus on action in low and middle income countries.
Current activities
To achieve the above key outcomes, UICC is continually developing and offering new opportunities to support the breast cancer community, and provide a space to learn and share experiences, and evidence-based practices. Some key activities of the Breast Cancer programme (non-exhaustive) include:
Driving national action to advance early detection
UICC supports the launch of new projects driving national action to improve the early diagnosis of breast cancer. In 2022-2023, 19 projects in advocacy, education of health care workers and patient navigation were completed in 18 LMICs. The organisations supported included universities, hospitals and civil society organisations, which received a one-year grant to implement projects to improve the early detection of breast cancer. Through their combined efforts, they enabled over 45,500 women to be examined for breast cancer and over 632,000 people were reached by awareness campaigns and breast health information.
Impact of the programme
Since its launch in 2020, the Breast Cancer programme has engaged over 420 breast cancer organisations in 110 countries in a wide range of activities supporting the goals of the GBCI. 19 new projects to improve the early diagnosis of breast cancer were funded in 18 countries. Through these projects over 45,500 women were examined for breast cancer and over 632,000 people were reached by awareness campaigns and breast health information. The programme also contributed to train over 2,700 professionals on breast health, timely diagnosis, patient navigation and management of breast cancer organisations.
Advancing national breast cancer control through advocacy
The Breast Cancer programme is supporting organisations in the development and implementation of their national cancer advocacy efforts through the Cancer Advocates programme. The most recent cohort with 19 organisations includes six with a specific focus on breast cancer in their national advocacy programmes. They receive advocacy training and individual mentorship.
Supporting knowledge exchange and professional development
Recognising the needs of its members to better understand the pillars of the GBCI and in order to engage with the initiative, UICC has developed the Global Breast Cancer Initiative foundational online course in collaboration with WHO. Launched in October 2024, the course is made available on demand exclusively to UICC members on UICC Connect, the new knowledge sharing and community platform enabling breast cancer groups to access online learning opportunities and interact virtually with each other. The GBCI foundational course can serve as preliminary learning for breast cancer professionals prior to undertaking the ‘Good practices for planning and implementing breast cancer projects’ self-guided course, currently available until February 2025 on UICC dedicated eLearning platform. This course was built upon a dedicated Project ECHO® focusing on the Knowledge Summaries for Breast Cancer, which engaged 25 breast cancer organisations around the world for a period of six months with the objective of supporting them in delivering strong breast cancer control policies and programmes.
Convening the breast cancer community regionally and globally
Breast cancer is a topic featured and addressed across all the major UICC platforms. In the 2022 and 2024 World Cancer Congresses, in addition to a wide array of sessions on breast cancer, dedicated workshops were held in collaboration with the WHO GBCI on ‘Advancing early detection of breast cancer in resource-limited settings’, and ‘Advancing breast cancer treatment and care in resource-limited settings’.
In 2022/23, in conjunction with its members, UICC has organised a series of regional meetings, welcoming representatives of Ministries of Health, civil society organisations and technical partners, and supporting cross-sectoral discussions on women's cancers, in Francophone Africa, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific to enable growing collaborations for integrated approaches for women’s cancers. Finally, Virtual Dialogues are organised to engage the wider breast cancer community virtually on key topics.
Throughout the year, UICC members can exchange ideas and share on UICC’s membership platform, UICC Connect.
Support the development of the health workforce in breast cancer
To strengthen the skills of individual healthcare professionals and share knowledge and expertise between organisations, breast cancer professionals have been supported through UICC's Technical Fellowships programme. Technical Fellowships allow individuals to visit another organisation for a period of up to two months to acquire specific skills or knowledge, for example in the area of public health or clinical service delivery. Calls for applications are open each year.
Last update
Thursday 10 October 2024