Sustainable Financing for NCDs: Paving a way forward by learning from progress at country level

The Fourth UN High-Level Meeting on the Prevention and Control of NCDs in 2025 (HLM4) is a critical moment for governments to commit to action that will keep alive the ambition of achieving the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2030 target 3.4 to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by 30% and promote mental health and well-being. A significant contribution to the preparation for HLM4 will be the “International Dialogue on Sustainable Financing for NCDs and Mental Health”, to be co-hosted by the World Bank and WHO in Washington DC, 20-21 June 2024 (the Financing Dialogue). The roundtable Sustainable Financing for NCDs: Paving a way forward by learning from progress at country level, co-hosted by Access Accelerated, NCD Alliance, and World Diabetes Foundation on the sidelines of the 77th Session of the World Health Assembly (WHA77) was positioned to engage key stakeholders and promote cross-sectoral discussion three weeks ahead of the Financing Dialogue. This invitation-only event brought together governments, multilateral organizations, civil society, the private sector, and other stakeholders to learn about experiences on NCD financing and country level NCD response programmes from a wide range of experts. It highlighted the political and policy aspirations for NCD financing through interventions outlining concrete progress by national governments and discussing ideas for transferring or scaling these successful initiatives. By focusing on the technical execution and rationale behind national decisions to invest in NCDs, the roundtable presented stakeholders with an opportunity to dig deeper into investment cases to understand the interplay of policy recommendations available to scale financing for health and NCDs. The roundtable built upon the “Integrating Health Financing to achieve UHC and NCD SDG Targets” roundtable, co-hosted by Access Accelerated (AA), NCD Alliance (NCDA), the World Bank, and World Diabetes Foundation (WDF) at UNGA78 on the side-lines of the High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage in September 2023, NCDA’s “Financing Solutions” policy priorities briefing paper for the Financing Dialogue, the renewed AA-World Bank partnership focused on improving financing for NCDs, and WDF’s ongoing and expanding work to improve financing and care for NCDs in LMICs.