The fifth meeting of the United Nations Interagency Task Force on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases was convened by the Secretariat of the Task Force and held on 26-27 October 2015 at WHO in Geneva. The meeting was co-chaired by WHO and the World Bank and was attended by colleagues from 23 UN agencies, programmes and funds.
The Task Force reviewed progress reports from countries that had received Task Force programming missions. Members of the Task Force agreed that there has been some excellent progress in moving the NCD agenda forward in a number of these countries.
The Task Force also agreed that, moving forward, UN action at the country level should be to support governments make progress on the WHO NCD Progress Monitor ahead of the Third High-level Meeting on NCDs in 2018.
Actions to take forward a series of global NCD joint programmes were agreed, including mHealth, cancer prevention and control and multisectoral action.
A new thematic group on the harmful use of alcohol was establish at the last meeting and an update on actions being developed by the group was provided by the two co-chairs, WHO and UNDP.
The meeting agreed the contours of the 2016-2017 work plan, with a focus on accelerating national NCD responses, in order to make progress ahead of the Third UN High-level Meeting on NCDs in 2018.