"Expanding Access to Care, Supporting global, regional, and country level NCD Action" is an NCD Alliance programme in partnership with Medtronic Philanthropy.
The Healthy Caribbean Coalition is a regional civil society alliance consisting of over 40 Caribbean-based health NGOs aimed at improving the prevention and management of NCDs among Caribbean people. Here’s a timeline of the coalition’s progress and achievements as part of this programme…HCC has committed to directly engaging people living with NCDs in the development of its NCD advocacy efforts. To this effect, in 2016 HCC’s work on cancer advocacy was the first of its kind in the region placing the voice of cancer survivors at the heart of developing a regional cancer advocacy agenda. HCC hosted a community conversation with breast and ovarian cancer survivors in partnership with University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) and Cancer survivors in Action (CSIA) at a conference titled the Inaugural Caribbean Cancer Survivorship Conference 2016 (October 21, 2016). In collaboration with the Caribbean Cancer Alliance, results were consolidated into the HCC Caribbean Cancer Alliance Cancer Advocacy Agenda (officially launched on February 4th 2017, World Cancer Day). The results of the community consultation conducted will also feed into the NCD Alliance’s consultation efforts in 2017 to arrive at the Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs.
In response to the findings of the 2014 Caribbean NCD Status Report developed as part of this programme, HCC has begun developing an action plan to guide the civil society contribution to national and regional responses to childhood obesity in the Caribbean.
In May 2016, the HCC in collaboration with the Barbados National NCD Commission prepared a briefing note entitled: Health and non-communicable diseases and the Barbados Physical Development Plan (BPDP) to highlight the adverse impact that the built environment may have on health and NCDs; and provide solutions and implementation measures to counteract these adverse impacts.
In 2016, building on the 2015 HCC/NCDA Assessment of National NCD Commissions (NNCDC), HCC worked with the Commonwealth Secretariat to develop the NNCDC Implementation Framework to support the establishment and strengthening of NNCDCs in Antigua & Barbuda; Grenada; and St. Vincent & the Grenadines.
In November 2016, HCC increased its public profile by launching the “First Annual Caribbean Alcohol Reduction Day: Misuse of alcohol is a bigger problem than you think” aimed at sensitising the people of the Caribbean to the harmful effects of abuse of alcohol and encouraging them to “drink less and live better”. This was supported by 16 national, regional and international partners and called for specific policy actions.
A High-level stakeholder evaluation of the HCC with a focus on HCC organisational governance, management, priority programming and sustainability was undertaken and completed in the fourth quarter of 2016 as part of HCC’s strategic planning process. As a key element of ensuring organisational sustainability, the HCC 2017-2021 Strategic Plan was developed and completed in January 2017. Sustainability is one of the 5 strategic pillars of the plan.