Non-communicable diseases

NCDs place a growing and unsustainable burden on health systems, jeopardizing achievement of universal health coverage and other sustainable development goal (SDG) targets. NCDs also sap national economies. Without urgent and accelerated action, NCDs will remain on course to cost LMICs US$21.3 trillion between 2010 and 2030, due to medical costs and lost productive capacities. NCDs can also be socially and economically catastrophic to households. Treatment costs and/or the death of a family breadwinner can worsen poverty for vulnerable households. School dropout, to care for a sick relative or to make up for lost wages, is common. Women and girls are usually first to sacrifice time and opportunity.

The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, through SDG 3, includes a specific target to reduce premature mortality from NCDs. Other SDG 3 targets are important for NCDs, for example targets to strengthen implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC), strengthen the prevention and treatment of harmful use of alcohol, halve global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents, achieve universal health coverage, reduce deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and pollution, and provide access to affordable medicines and vaccines.

Achieving these targets would deliver gains across Agenda 2030, given the relationship between NCDs and priorities such as poverty and inequality reduction, economic growth, climate action and financing for development. For example, reducing the 9 million deaths from NCDs caused annually by air pollution would benefit health while protecting the planet. Likewise, price and tax measures on tobacco, alcohol and sugar-sweetened beverages would generate significant domestic revenue, in addition to strong health impacts. The Addis Ababa Action Agenda of the Third International Conference on Financing for Development underscores this power of tobacco taxes.

Tackling NCDs and their risk factors requires a response from government sectors beyond health. Population exposure to NCD risk factors, and access to services, are determined largely by policies in finance, agriculture, environment, urban planning, trade, labour, education and other “non-health” sectors. This means that early death, illness and disability from NCDs are largely avoidable through improved policy coherence across sectors, and careful conflicts of interest management in public policy. Tackling the commercial determinants of health is of growing concern to policy makers and legislators.

• UNDP fosters coordination within and beyond the health sector to ensure NCD responses are effectively integrated with broader efforts to improve health and achieve the SDGs
• UNDP has extensive expertise in implementing large health programmes, for example through its partnership with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria
• UNDP has strong core competencies across areas critical to NCDs, including access to affordable basic services, poverty and inequity reduction, environment and energy, governance and peacebuilding, sustainable financing, gender, and South-South and triangular cooperation
• UNDP has a strong track record of leveraging and strengthening partnerships for health and sustainable development, including with other global health organizations, civil society, academia, the private sector, and affected communities