The NCD Alliance wishes to congratulate Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on his appointment as the next Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO). Dr Tedros was appointed WHO Director-General after receiving a clear majority of the votes from WHO Member States following 3 rounds of voting. He will take office on 1 July 2017.

“Throughout the election process, Dr Tedros has highlighted that, as WHO Director-General, he will work for a world in which everyone can lead healthy and productive lives, regardless of who they are or where they live, and address the social, economic and political determinants of health and improve the health and wellbeing of people everywhere. We hope that he will bring his experience transforming Ethiopia’s health system to expand quality care and access to tens of millions of Ethiopians to bear on national responses to improve access to NCD care,” said Mr José Castro, Executive Director of the Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease and President of the NCD Alliance.

“We look forward to working with Dr Tedros to address NCDs and interlinked priorities such as climate change and environmental threats, global trade and inequities in access to basic healthcare and social protection,” said NCD Alliance Executive Director Katie Dain.

With NCDs the leading cause of death and disability, the NCD Alliance has called on the incoming WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros, to embrace and lead on an integrated vision for NCD prevention and control.

Making meaningful progress on NCDs will require that NCDs are deemed a priority issue for WHO going forward, particularly in the lead up to the 2018 UN High Level Meeting on NCDs.

Mobilisation of adequate and sustained financial resources for the WHO’s work on NCDs will be critical to enable WHO to respond to the high volume of requests for technical cooperation at the country level and facilitate action and accountability on achieving NCD reduction targets at the global level. 

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have catalysed greater focus on the potential for co-benefit solutions across different dimensions of sustainable development. Moving the dial on policy coherence and integrated care for NCDs, such as through Universal Health Coverage, will accelerate progress across a number of health targets and related SDGs.

The NCD community is looking to Dr Tedros for visionary leadership to strengthen the WHO’s role in addressing NCDs, working across UN agencies and stakeholders and facilitating multi-sectoral approaches