The Global Dialogue was an important milestone in the informal preparatory process led by WHO for the UN General Assembly Third High-level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of NCDs, which will be held on 27th September in New York, USA. The Dialogue attracted close to 300 participants including representatives of Member States, UN Agencies, and non-State actors.
The meeting provided a platform to showcase the accomplishments since 2011, review the commitments made at the High-level meetings and other important global conferences on financing development, and emphasize the role of partnerships for mobilizing resources for national NCD responses, as well as the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Participants included more than 100 participants representing 56 countries worldwide, 60 participants representing various UN Agencies and more than 100 participants as non-State actors, of which more than half represented non-health sectors.
Expected outcomes for the Dialogue were met: a greater understanding of the current NCD financing landscape was well noted by participants. This effort was complemented by the launch of the Lancet Economic Series on NCDs and Economics. The Dialogue also succeeded in assessing the progress in funding national NCD responses since 2011 as well as highlighting the remaining challenges and addressing these through innovative solutions.
The Dialogue facilitated an increased multistakeholder and multisectoral dialogue and communication on how to mobilize domestic and external (bilateral and multilateral) financing streams, as well as how to incentivize the private sector to support national NCD responses.
With support and inputs from WHO technical focal points, the Dialogue provided much needed evidence, data and best practices that emphasize the importance of achieving a sustainable NCD response through improved understanding of the synergies between financing NCD responses and broader health system strengthening efforts towards universal health coverage (UHC).
Finally, the Dialogue served as an effective platform to strengthen alliances and advance multistakeholder and multisectoral partnerships for accelerating action towards sustainable financing to support SDG 3.4. The Dialogue also witnessed the announcement of various reports and commitments from several stakeholders. These included the launch of the GCM Working Group Report on how to realize governments’ commitment to provide financing for NCDs, the above-mentioned Lancet Economic Series on NCDs and Economics, and Denmark’s commitment to support the Defeat NCD Partnership and set up an SDG Fund to secure new investments for the SDGs, including SDG 3, in low- and middle- income countries.
The innovative part of the Global Dialogue was the Youth Innovation Lab formed in collaboration of WDF together with NCD Child, NCD Free, IFMSA and the YP-CDN. The Youth Lab convened 20 carefully selected young talents from all over the world to work in parallel to the Global Dialogue to provide innovative solutions to the issues being discussed at the Global Dialogue. The outcomes were then presented to the participants of the Global Dialogue and received a lot of positive feedback and appreciation. The young talents will continue working on their ideas and make sure they will be implemented.