Forum to accelerate efforts to prevent and control NCDs

Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher Bint Mohammed Al Qasimi, Wife of His Highness the Ruler of Sharjah and Chairperson of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs has approved February 9 – 11, 2020, as the dates for the third Global NCD Alliance Forum that will be held in Sharjah. The Forum will be hosted and organised by Friends Of Cancer Patients (FOCP) in partnership with the global NCD Alliance (NCDA).

The Forum is being organised under the theme, ‘Bridging the Gap’, with a view to accelerating global efforts to translate political commitments into action and implementation at the national and local levels. It reflects Her Highness Sheikha Jawaher’s and FOCP’s commitment to the global fight to prevent and control NCDs.

The Forum will convene representatives from the growing network of national and regional NCD alliances. It will provide a platform for knowledge exchange, capacity building, priority setting, and facilitating twinning initiatives across the alliances.

Sawsan Jafar, Chairperson of the Board of Directors, FOCP, said: “Non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and mental health are responsible for 70 percent of deaths globally. They cause enormous challenges for people, their families and societies, and undermine economic productivity of countries.”

She added: “The Forum will underscore the importance of global cooperation, scientific research and ways to develop the global plan to fight NCDs. It will also focus on the need to learn best practices from across the world and to gain new knowledge on NCD prevention, control and reduction. It will reaffirm the NCD Alliance’s commitment to put intentions into action and activate international policies.”

Todd Harper, President of NCD Alliance, said: “The third Global NCD Alliance Forum will build on the successes of the first two editions by mobilising key civil society stakeholders and consolidating the Forum as the key global meeting for the NCD civil society.”

Since its inception in 2009, the NCD Alliance has been a major catalyst in securing political priority for NCDs at the global level. The first Global NCD Alliance Forum 2015 culminated with the Sharjah Declaration on NCDs, which called on governments to champion NCD prevention to curtail lifestyle diseases and resulted in increased knowledge and advocacy skills and new networks and connections, as well as landmarking Sharjah’s Declaration on NCDs.

The second Global NCD Alliance Forum, held in 2017, mobilized the NCD civil society community towards the 2018 UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs. The forum also launched the first edition of Sharjah Awards for Excellence in NCD Civil Society Action, to showcase the work being done by NCD alliances around the world to further the Sharjah Declaration.

This year, the NCD Forum will focus on action enablers, translating solutions and what works in local and national contexts. It will also offer a civil society perspective and take a political economy lens on the key catalysts for change that can bridge the major gaps in the NCD response.

The forum will be held in its third session with the participation and attendance of more than 400 representatives from the NCD civil society and the public sectors across the world, building links with multilateral organisations, international NGOs, select government representatives and NCD experts.

Founded in 1999, the FOCP was established to help alleviate the financial and emotional burden that cancer often imposes on patients and their families, and to promote awareness about the six early detectable types of the disease: breast, cervical, prostate, skin, testicular and colorectal cancers. Apart from its awareness role, FOCP is committed to providing moral and financial support to thousands of patients and their families of all ages and nationalities across the UAE. To date, FOCP has provided support to more than 5,000 cancer patients and their families.

The NCD Alliance (NCDA) is a unique civil society network, dedicated to improving NCD prevention and control worldwide. Today, the network includes NCDA members, national and regional NCD alliances, over 1,000 member associations of our founding federations, scientific and professional associations and academic and research institutions.