Civil society representing twenty four NGOs from across eleven CARICOM territories came together to reflect, celebrate and plan the way forward for HCC’s 2017-2021 Strategic Plan. Some forty participants engaged in intense deliberations aimed at developing a draft framework for HCC’s upcoming strategic plan.

This is the first in a series of consultations. The current 2012-2016 strategic plan expires at the end of this year; and was developed in 2011-2012 through a similar series of participatory processes. The packed one-day programme featured Dr. Karen Sealey, Dr. Beverley Barnett, Ms. Emma Hughes, Sir Trevor Hassell, Laura Tucker-Longsworth and Maisha Hutton, providing background and context as it related to HCC’s challenges and achievements to date; the national, regional and global reporting frameworks; and sharing of preliminary findings from the recently completed HCC CSO member capacity and information needs assessment.

Delegates agreed on the five strategic areas which will underpin the upcoming strategic framework: accountability, advocacy, capacity building, communication and sustainability.

Draft goals, strategic objectives, expected outcomes, activities and partners were also developed for each of the five priority focus areas. Next steps will be to further develop and finalise the plan through a series of consultations with stakeholders at the national, regional and global levels.

A major outcome of the meeting was a collective agreement to support the advancement of the childhood obesity interventions in the Caribbean from the civil society perspective. Participants felt passionate that this was a common area unifying their traditionally disparate disease-specific organisations; and they committed to work together to define a CSO agenda for action.

With funding from the NCD Alliance, the HCC is currently developing a civil society action plan for childhood obesity which will form the basis of this regional agenda. This meeting was supported by the NCD Alliance as part of the Expanding Access to Care, Supporting Global, regional and Country level NCD Action Programme in partnership with Medtronic Philanthropy.