Our Views, Our Voices

Mexican man Jaime Barba on stage lifting hand at Global NCD Alliance Forum

Jaime Barba, Mexican lived experience advocate, at the 2025 Global NCD Alliance Forum

Nothing about us, without us!

Why Meaningful Involvement matters

Meaningful involvement ensures that people with lived experience of NCDs play an active role in shaping policies, programmes, and services that affect their lives.

Amplifying voices – Lived experience advocates speak up to demand fundamental rights to health and participation.
Empowering voices – Lived experience advocates shape priorities through direct engagement.
Strengthening policies – First-hand perspectives ensure NCD prevention, treatment, and financing strategies are more inclusive and effective.
Breaking down barriers – Lived experience voices and stories inspire others and dismantle stigma and discrimination.

“Meaningful involvement is the only way that barriers between policymakers and people living with NCDs can be removed.”

Joshua Makubu

Advocate with lived experience of physical disability, Ghana

Guided by the lived experience

The Global Advisory Committee

The Our Views, Our Voices Global Advisory Committee ensures that the initiative remains responsive, impactful, and led by lived experience. The committee:

Advises on strategic direction and key advocacy priorities;
Champions meaningful involvement at global, regional, and national levels;
Shapes capacity development resources, including training and publications; and
Represents the initiative in key forums, amplifying advocacy messages.

A compass for action: The Advocacy Agenda

Shaped by lived experience, driving NCD advocacy

Woman being interviewed with microphone above her head about NCDs

Built through extensive global consultations in 2017, the Advocacy Agenda highlights the priorities and demands of people living with NCDs worldwide.

Contributions from nearly 2,000 individuals in its creation have provided a comprehensive, first-hand perspective that guides global advocacy efforts to enhance NCD prevention, treatment and control.

The global Advocacy Agenda has since inspired similar national advocacy agendas tailored to local contexts across diverse countries and regions.

Global Advocacy Agenda

Advocacy Agenda

Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Regional Advocacy Agendas

Publication cover of portraits of people living with NCDs across africa

Advocacy Agenda

Africa Regional Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

National Advocacy Agendas

Rwanda Advoacy Agenda Cover with people living with NCDs in masks

Advocacy Agenda

Rwanda Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda

Philippine Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda

Ghana Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda

India Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda

Mexico Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda

Malawi Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda

Vietnam Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda

Malaysia Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda

Tanzania Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

cover of the Kenya Advoacy Agenda of people living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda

Kenya Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

NCD Diaries: Lived experience in action

The NCD Diaries harness the power of storytelling—through written entries, podcasts, and visual journals—to bring to light the realities of living with an NCD.

The first series of the NCD Diaries project explores the realities of living with multiple chronic conditions—whether it’s two or more NCDs or a combination of an NCD and an infectious disease such as HIV, TB, or COVID-19. Through powerful personal stories, diarists shed light on the daily challenges and resilience required to navigate complex health conditions.

Explore Series 1

Picture of a smiling black lady, NCD Diarist

Healthcare should be accessible to all—but for many, affordability remains a major barrier. In this series, NCD Diaries amplifies voices that highlight the financial challenges of managing NCDs and the critical need for Universal Health Coverage (UHC). These first-hand experiences expose gaps in healthcare access and emphasize why financial protection is essential for equitable health systems.

Explore Series 2

portrait of asian woman smiling at cameria

A strong patient-provider relationship is essential for quality care. In this series, lived experience advocates reflect on their interactions with healthcare providers—both the positive experiences that shaped their care and the challenges that still need to be addressed. Their stories underscore the importance of compassionate, patient-centered healthcare.

Explore Series 3

Woman of asian descent in headscarf smiling at camera

Prevention is key in the fight against NCDs. In this series, lived experience advocates share their personal journeys, emphasizing why action on NCD prevention and health promotion is crucial. They highlight their motivations for advocacy and the importance of tackling NCD risk factors to create healthier communities.

Explore Series 4

portrait of a black man smiling at camera living with NCDs

Healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. This series shines a light on the inequalities in accessing NCD care—whether due to financial hardship, discriminatory policies, or systemic barriers. Advocates call for urgent action to ensure no one is left behind and that UHC truly covers all populations, regardless of their circumstances.

Explore Series 5

Head shot of smiling white woman and NCD diarist

Currently in development! Watch this space.

Key resources:

Impact Report

NCD Diaries Evaluation Summary

Policy Brief

From ideas to action: Accelerating the NCD response through health equity, a conceptual framework

report cover collection lived experiences people living with NCDs and HIV

Policy Brief

A collection of the lived experiences of people living with NCDs and HIV

Policy Brief

Equity in action: Adding an equity lens to NCD advocacy, a practical guide

Template icon for NCD Alliance Resources

Meaningfully Involving People Living with NCDs

Man raising his hand at an NCD Alliance conference on NCDs

The Global Charter on Meaningful Involvement

Committing to putting people at the centre

Developed through consultation with 500+ voices from 50 countries, the Global Charter on Meaningful Involvement of People Living with NCDs is a rallying call for governments, institutions, and organisations to make meaningful involvement a reality.

10 core strategies guiding meaningful involvement in policy and decision-making
Endorsed globally, influencing national advocacy efforts
A practical tool for embedding lived experience into organisational policies

Read and Endorse the Global Charter

“The Global Charter on Meaningful Involvement of People Living with NCDs was a key resource. It helped us explain to different stakeholders what meaningful involvement is and how it can be done.”

Mandy Thoo

NCD Malaysia

Key Achievements of Our Views, Our Voices

Celebrating 5 years of impact - watch the video retrospective:

Driving change in country

NCD Advocate Christ Agbega speaking into a microphone at an event

Local Impact

Shaping national policies and strengthening healthcare services through community action in Ghana

After participating in the Our Views, Our Voices train-the-trainer programme in 2018, the Ghana NCD Alliance (GhNCDA) trained 70 people with lived experience across five regions. This led to the formation of regional networks that played a key role in developing the Ghana Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs, launched in 2019.

Meaningful involvement deepened as GhNCDA worked with the Ghana Health Service to integrate NCDs into the community scorecard system, enabling trained Community Health Management Committees (CHMCs) to assess NCD services in two pilot districts. Their findings informed a community-led monitoring report, uploaded to Ghana’s digital health system to identify gaps and improve healthcare access at the primary level. This initiative highlights how lived experience and civil society collaboration can drive policy change and improve NCD care.

woman holding a placard that says Make India NCD free

Local Impact

Driving Policy Change Through Sub-National Advocacy in India

In India, Healthy India Alliance (HIA) has championed meaningful involvement by embedding lived experience into state and national NCD policy. Recognising that health is a state-level issue, HIA conducted sub-national consultations in Maharashtra and Punjab, mapping advocacy priorities for a more people-centred NCD response.

This work led to the formation of Multistakeholder Working Groups, bringing together state health departments, civil society, healthcare providers, and people living with NCDs. In 2022, these groups developed state-level guidelines for meaningful involvement, which were formally submitted to the State Ministers of Health.

By 2023, sustained advocacy resulted in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare updating India’s National Programme for Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases (NP-NCD 2023-2030). For the first time, the programme formally recognises the role of lived experience networks in shaping an inclusive NCD response.

Explore more stories of impact: