GHAI remarks at the UN Multistakeholder Hearing on the Prevention and Control of NCDs

The Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) delivered these remarks on May 2, 2025 at the United Nations Multistakeholder Hearing on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and the Promotion of Mental Health and Well-Being. The hearing is part of the preparatory process for the fourth High-Level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on NCDs, scheduled for September 2025.

As an organization that uses the power of advocacy to reduce preventable deaths and to improve health at scale by changing policies and strengthening systems, the Global Health Advocacy Incubator at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids knows that our success in reducing the toll of noncommunicable diseases will depend on effective policy development and implementation in every country. To that end, we offer three recommendations:

1. Fully engage civil society. Through our support of civil society organizations and advocacy movements in more than 40 countries to pass public health policies that save lives, reduce disease and prevent injuries, we understand the indispensable role that civil society plays in planning, helping develop and adopt, and implementing necessary policies. Government action does not take place in a vacuum; it is strengthened by the evidence, input, demand, technical assistance and accountability mechanisms provided by civil society.
2. Expand the fiscal space for NCDs, including through health taxes. Domestic resource mobilization is crucial for country ownership of health systems and budgets that are predictable, reliable and sustainable. Civil society can help enable the political will and public support to ensure that sufficient resources are allocated to NCDs and that funding gets where it is needed.
3. Protect public health policymaking from health-harming interests and enact evidence-based regulations of health-harming products. As we have documented in multiple reports, health-harming industries like ultra-processed product manufacturers have a global playbook, based on tactics developed by the tobacco industry, to prevent and undermine public health policies that threaten their profits. Countries must enact strong conflict of interest rules to prevent that playbook from slowing progress on NCDs.