2023 was a landmark year for global health, with an unprecedented three UNGA High-Level Meetings focused on health issues - universal health coverage, tuberculosis, and pandemic preparedness and response. NCDs were addressed at all of these meetings, reflecting not only the rising importance of health on the global agenda but also the centrality of NCDs to other global health priorities.

The world today is facing what many refer to as a “polycrisis”, cascading and interconnected crises occurring all at once to the detriment of population and planetary health and sustainable development – and NCDs are at the epicenter. With wars and conflicts raging, there were 300 million people living in humanitarian crises at the end of 2023. Destructive and catastrophic climate events are now the norm in all corners of the world, and a global economic recession is stretching health budgets to the limit. Despite this increasingly turbulent global context, we have managed to keep NCDs in the policy conversation, and this was reflected in the Political Declarations from the HLMs, with specific language around NCDs including mental health. And we have continued to support civil society and people living with NCDs, working at grassroots level to drive national NCD policy action, share knowledge and best practice on NCDs, and position NCDs within the various crises that threaten health and sustainable development.

Now at the mid-point of our long-term strategy 2021-2026, we are seeing results from our work across our four thematic impact goals – prevention, care, financing and community engagement – as NCDs climb higher on the global agenda and people living with NCDs are taking on a growing role in the policy decisions that affect their health. The following pages contain a sample of these results, highlighting progress and achievements from across the year.

As it becomes more and more evident that addressing NCDs will require multi-sectoral collaboration, NCDA’s diverse membership and partners are even more integral to all of our achievements and work. In 2023, our membership base continued to grow and thrive, contributing to important policy developments for NCDs at national and global level, raising awareness of the issues in communities and at the political level, delivering health services for people living with NCDs, and leading coalitions that are impatient for change.

As always, we are deeply thankful to our partners who provide invaluable support year in and year out to NCDA and our mission. We also thank the NCDA Board of Directors who have provided oversight and strategic direction of NCDA, as well as the professional and committed work of the NCDA team.

Despite changing global priorities as a result of an intensifying polycrisis, one element has remained the same - people living with NCDs are among the most vulnerable in any health, climate or humanitarian emergency. We will continue our relentless work to drive progress towards a sustainable world that promotes health, protects rights, and saves lives.

*This message is taken from NCDA’s 2023 Annual Report. You can read the full Annual Report here.

Read the Annual Report 2023

About the authors:

Dr. Monika Arora is President of NCDA and a public health scientist working on health promotion and health advocacy with a focus on NCD prevention and control. She is Executive Director of Delhi-based NGO, HRIDAY, Director and Professor of Health Promotion for the Public Health Foundation of India and a founding Governing Board Member of HIA and chairperson of SEAR- NCDA. She has served as a member of the WHO-Ad Hoc Working Group on Implementation, Monitoring and Accountability on Ending Childhood Obesity, WHO CSWG that supported UNHLM on NCDs (2018-2019) and Second WHO CSWG (2019-2021). Currently a member of World Heart Federation’s Advocacy Committee. Dr. Arora has been honoured with the Best Practices Award by Global Health Council, 2011, WHO DG’s World No Tobacco Day Award, 2012; Dr. Prem Menon outstanding service award, 2018 by World-India Diabetes Foundation.

Katie Dain is Chief Executive Officer of the NCD Alliance, and has worked with NCDA since its founding in 2009. Katie is widely recognised as a leading advocate and expert on NCDs. She co-chairs the WHO Civil Society Working Group on NCDs, and has served as a commissioner on the WHO Independent High-Level Commission on NCDs, The Lancet Commission on NCDIs of the Poorest Billion, The Lancet Commission on Global Oral Health, and The Rockefeller-Boston University Commission on Health Determinants, Data and Decision-making. She is also a member of the Steering Committee for the Coalition for Access to NCD Medicines and Products. Her experience covers a range of sustainable development issues, including global health, gender equality and women’s empowerment, violence against women, and women’s health. Before joining the NCD Alliance, she held a series of policy and advocacy posts in international NGOs and government, including the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) in Brussels; the UK Government as a gender policy adviser; Womankind Worldwide; and the Terrence Higgins Trust.