People living with NCDs play a crucial role in developing and implementing NCD policies, programmes and services at global, national and local levels – yet their involvement so far has been largely tokenistic. This year, the NCD Alliance aims to help promote the meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs with the development of a Global Charter.

The Global Charter on Meaningful Involvement of People Living with NCDs will be launched in September 2021, during the Global Week for Action on NCDs. Governments, multilaterals, relevant private sector and civil society organisations will be called upon to publicly endorse and sign on to the Global Charter, with the aim of making meaningful involvement a standard part of organisational practices.

The Global Charter will be produced through consultations with the NCD Alliance network, which includes people living with NCDs, government and multilateral representatives, civil society, academia and relevant private sector.  In addition to an online survey, various discussions will be organised in different regions of the world, to ensure findings are globally representative. The NCD Alliance will also support national and regional NCD alliances in reaching out to their local communities to gather additional insights, with grant opportunities being made available for this purpose.

Through these consultations, the Global Charter on Meaningful Involvement of People Living with NCDs will offer a shared understanding of meaningful involvement and its importance, and will promote strategies for implementation as well as mechanisms for accountability.  Finally, it will contribute to a growing knowledge base on meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs, making clear the different enablers and barriers to its advancement.   

The need for meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs and communities was acknowledged in the UN Political Declarations on NCDs and Universal Health Coverage in 2018 and 2019. Now, in 2021, we hope to see people living with NCDs stepping into their key role in shaping health policy and services in ways that address their real needs, both within and beyond the health system.