The Global NCD Platform Director’s Office: Delivering impact to achieve UHC, NCD and other health-related SDG targets

The GNP Director’s Office advocates for increased investments and capacity building in low- and middle-income countries to address the commitments of the United Nations High-level Meetings on the prevention and control of NCDs, on Universal Health Coverage, and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. It also provides strategic oversight and ensures synergies between the GCM/NCD and UNIATF.

The team in the DO implements multipartner projects and innovative initiatives to promote multistakeholder and multisectoral action against NCDs and accelerate progress towards SDG target 3.4.

Key GNP Director’s Office projects


Building and sustaining multistakeholder and multisectoral action

The WHO Global NCD Platform, in collaboration with John Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, has developed an online training course for national capacity-building to accelerate multisectoral and multistakeholder action towards SDG target 3.4 and UHC.

This course consists of five multimedia educational modules, which aim to help NCD and mental health managers to develop the exceptional leadership and critical thinking skills required to coordinate policies and activities across different stakeholders within and beyond the health sector. 

The course is tailored to:

  • NCD & mental health managers in ministries of health and/or national institutes and agencies responsible for NCD and mental health response;
  • Policymakers in health & related sectors;
  • Programme managers from WHO and other UN institutions;
  • Civil society organizations;
  • Other relevant stakeholders working on NCDs & mental health. 

Young ResearchersProgramme

The WHO Global NCD Platform in collaboration with partners is scaling up action to stimulate demand for locally focused research to address context-specific problems and propose action-oriented solutions to addressing NCDs and mental Health challenges. At the same time, the initiative provides young people with a platform and the means to  showcase their innovative and creative thinking in this important field.

The Young Researchers Programme will build on the successful completion of the pilot phase rolled out by the Global NCD Platform in collaboration with UNITAR’s Defeat NCD Partnership and the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research. 

As part of the pilot programme, incentive grants were awarded to eight winners from LMICs enrolled in academic institutions. Their research is investigating NCD and mental health challenges in Uganda, Peru, China, India, Ethiopia, Cameroon, and Egypt, representing five WHO Regions. The first Grants Award Ceremony was held in a dedicated session during the World Health Summit 2022 in Berlin, Germany.

Integrated NCD, maternal, newborn and child care

WHO prioritizes improving the quality of care for mothers, newborns, and children, developing quality improvement tools to support countries with planning, implementing, building capacity, and measuring MNCH quality of care programmes. These programmes now also aim to integrate NCD prevention and control and promotion of mental health.

The Global NCD Platform leads the implementation of the NCD component of the WHO project on Improving the Quality of Hospital Care to Reduce Maternal, Newborn & Child Mortality and Accelerate the Achievement of SDG Health Targets in selected countries, in collaboration with multipledepartments across the three levels of the WHO, as well as external experts.

Within the scope of this project, the Global NCD Platform has agreed with the British Medical Journal to produce a special series providing the latest available evidence and highlighting important linkages between the MNCH and NCD and mental health agendas. The publication is planned for late 2023.