Advocating for change
Advocating for change Sample image

The Our Views, Our Voices initiative looks to promote efforts supporting people living with NCDs to be active advocates, engage in dialogue with policy makers and occupy key decision-making roles

The initiative has a strong advocacy component that seeks to ensure that the needs and priorities of people living with NCDs are considered and addressed in the NCD response and that people living with NCDs are directly involved in advocacy, boosting collective efforts at national, regional and global levels.

Advocating for change Sample image


To accelerate progress on NCDs, we, people living with NCDs, are uniting to take a stand, claim our voices, and put an end to political inertia. In order for international, regional and national responses to make a difference in the lives of people like us, we must be at the heart of the NCD response. We must be a part of decision-making bodies and processes and have our views and voices heard. Our presence, passion, dedication, and insights stand to lend vigour and urgency to an NCD response that truly reflects the needs and priorities of people. "

Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs

The Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs was built with the generous input of 1,893 people living with NCDs who took part in the Our Views, Our Voices consultation efforts. It provides a compass for NCD advocacy efforts and functions as a living document that captures the priorities of people living with NCDs. It is intended to guide and support efforts of key stakeholders to improve NCD prevention and control.

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The Advocacy Agenda crystallises the recommendations of those living with NCDs. It draws from the power of the lived experience.

The Advocacy Agenda also serves to strengthen the NCD response at national, regional, and global levels. It is a reference to be used by civil society organisations, NCD alliances and people living with NCDs to present to decision makers, urging them to take action, to meet global NCD targets, and to put people first. It can be used strategically according to each setting and the advocacy opportunities that present themselves.

The Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs calls for action in four key areas:

  • Human Rights and Social Justice
  • Prevention
  • Treatment, Care, and Support
  • Meaningful Involvement

These four pillars of the Advocacy Agenda are closely interrelated, and achieving progress on one will necessitate progress on all others. Human rights, social justice, and meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs are the foundation for all action on NCDs. Our ambitions to reduce the NCD burden will not be achieved without action on prevention, and we cannot make progress without providing adequate treatment, care and support.

Making of the Advocacy Agenda


I would say that living with a chronic disease always has tradeoffs in terms of quality... The impact includes a low grade sense of dread that the NCD will require costly interventions but also the opportunity cost of making choices about health based on cost savings rather than health benefits.

Lived experience of cancer and autoimmune disorder, United States