This years World Health Assembly (WHA) was a major moment for NCDs, marking the end of several ongoing consultation processes and putting in place the strong foundations of a global NCD framework.

During the week of WHA, countries began to earnestly discuss a draft “omnibus resolution” on NCDs. This resolution sought to combine major decisions and recommendations in a single, comprehensive resolution.

Today, countries unanimously adopted and supported an omnibus resolution on NCDs. This groundbreaking resolution fulfills commitments made in the UN Political Declaration on the Prevention and Control of NCDs, and signals consensus on the three pillars of the global NCD architecture - action, accountability and coordination.

The key decisions in the resolution are:

• To endorse the WHO global action plan for the prevention and control of NCDs 2013–2020;
• To adopt the global monitoring framework on NCDs, including the 9 global targets and 25 indicators;
• To develop a global coordination mechanism by the end of 2013 to coordinate activities and promote engagement of all actors in the global NCD response.

The importance of these three decisions should not be underestimated. As WHO Assistant-Director General, Dr Oleg Chestnov stated at WHA, “the adoption of the global action plan moves the process from the political to the practical realm”. With the adoption of the global monitoring framework and the ambitious 9 global targets and 25 indicators, for the first time all governments are accountable for progress on NCDs. And the global coordination mechanism will provide a vehicle to convene and mobilise relevant actors (including multilateral and bilateral agencies, governments, NGOs, and the private sector where appropriate) to accelerate progress on NCDs.

It was thanks to the initiative of Australia, Canada, China, Columbia, Costa Rica, Libya, Malaysia, Mexico, Russian Federation, Singapore and the USA that we have secured these landmark decisions for NCDs this week. After an intense week of negotiations, the resolution was co-sponsored by an impressive 41 countries and unanimously adopted by all countries, reinforcing the growing political commitment on NCDs across all regions.

For more information please visit our web page on the 66th WHA

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