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CEO Perspective

Success Factors for NCDs: Pathways to Accelerate Progress

Good evening. My name is José Luis Castro, and as President of the NCD Alliance, it is my pleasure to welcome you to tonight’s event, “Success Factors for NCDs: Pathways to Accelerate Progress.” We are very fortunate to be joined by a distinguished panel of speakers, and a moderator who will no doubt keep the discussion lively. 

In the months leading up to the 2018 UN High Level Meeting on NCDs, we have a crucial opportunity. Now is the moment to highlight progress made on commitments from the 2014 High Level Meeting on NCDs, and to use this reflection as a resource to redouble our efforts, and hone our future commitments.

We’ve come so far in raising awareness about NCDs and the grave toll they take on millions of people’s lives and livelihoods. But we’ve also discovered where the difficulties lie. At the highest level, we need heads of state to be more involved in reducing the global problem of NCDs, in addition to Health Ministers and civil society leaders.

In all countries we need more advocates and allies, clinicians and educators to drive our progress on non-communicable disease.

While we all recognize that there is no one approach to NCD interventions at the country level, I am very much looking forward to the case studies, the stories, and the evidence our panelists will share with us tonight. I look forward to hearing about the experiences that can serve to model success for our increasing contexts internationally—about the factors that make a difference in preventable deaths and disease from NCDs.

It’s an evening of shared viewpoints that we need to help drive our impact deeper.

With that, it is my pleasure to give the floor to Dr. Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet, who honors us by moderating our discussion.