Priorities for the UN High-Level Meeting on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) 2025

NCDs remain the leading global cause of death and disability. When it comes to NCDs, women and girls around the world are at even greater risk of either contracting some NCDs or in challenges accessing healthcare, particularly in low-resource contexts.

We call on representatives of the United Nations and international bodies, governments, business, civil society, health professionals, researchers, philanthropic organisations, and the public must join a coordinated movement to safeguard the health of women, girls, and gender minorities by tackling NCDs.

Our advocacy priorities

Accelerate implementation: commit to pursue and promote gender-based care and mainstream a gender perspective into multisectoral national NCD action plans.¹

Mobilise investment: prioritise under supported women-specific NCDs including implementing commitments to meet WHO targets on cervical cancer by 2030.

Break Down Silos: adopt a life-course approach to women’s health, integrating NCD services into routine services.

Engage communities: work with academia and civil society to prioritise routine collection and analysis of data disaggregated by sex, gender, and other intersecting characteristics to support the design, implementation, and monitoring of effective, targeted interventions.

Deliver accountability: uphold women’s health and human rights – implementing recommendations made by the Committee on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Reference:

1. World Health Organization. (2023). Tackling NCDs: 'best buys' and other recommended interventions for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (2nd ed.).