News
NCD Summit failures in New York should be wake-up call
22 Sep 2011
A 'Political Declaration' on non-communicable diseases
has been met with disappointment because it does not contain strong
enough targets.
This week, world leaders signed up to the "Political
Declaration" at the United Nations "High Level Meeting on the
Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases" at the UN
General Assembly in New York City, 19-20 September 2011.
No time bound goals or targets
The declaration was met with disappointment by consumer and
public health campaigners. Despite recognising the severity of the
threat from non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the declaration does
not contain any time bound goals or targets. Instead, the WHO has
been requested to submit "options for strengthening and
facilitating multisectoral action" by the end of 2012, and to
prepare a review in 2014.
Private sector role
The declaration also fails to clearly define the role of the
private sector in prevention and control of NCDS, recommending
throughout the document cooperation "as appropriate".
Consumers International (CI), along with 139 other
organisations, has signed up to a statement of concern by the
Conflicts of Interest Coalition calling for the establishment of a
code of conduct to govern civil society engagement in which the
process of policy development is protected from the influence of
the for-profit sector.
Consumers International
The NCD summit was attended for CI by Michael Hansen of
Consumers Union in the USA, and by the head of the CI Kuala Lumpur
office, Indrani Thuraisingham. Thuraisingham was invited to
speak at a roundtable session on "fostering international
cooperation." She raised concerns over conflicts of interest
and lamented the lack of time bound targets:
"We can only hope that the failure of this summit to deliver
more ambitious outcomes will be a 'wake up call' to all member
states and create a new sense of purpose that will lead to the
development of ambitious global targets and indicators on NCDs
before the end of 2012. It is important that this summit leads to
intensification in international efforts rather than a sense of
pessimism.'
Read Consumers International's proposed outcomes for the
UN NCD high level meeting (pdf).