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On December 5–8, 2018, the Program in Global Noncommunicable Disease and Social Change at Harvard Medical School and the NCD Synergies project at Partners In Health hosted a four-day NCDI Poverty National Commission Initiator’s Workshop at the Harvard Medical School Center for Global Health Delivery–Dubai, Dubai, UAE.
National NCDI Poverty Commissions are an initiative of The Lancet Commission on Reframing NCDs and Injuries for the Poorest Billion (NCDI Poverty). These Commissions have been established in a group of low- and lower-middle income countries with large concentrations of people among the poorest billion in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the Caribbean. The purpose of these Commissions is to assess the burden of disease from NCDIs and to identify policies and integrated delivery platforms that would effectively address and reduce that burden.
The Workshop welcomed 45 participants and facilitators to delve into the work that has been accomplished by the 10 National NCDI Poverty Commissions that were established in 2016, and provided an exploratory platform for six new countries to begin the Commission process.
The workshop introduced participants to the methodology and tools needed to quantify the national burden of NCDIs, measure the availability of existing services, and prioritize interventions that are both cost-effective and equitable with a particular focus on poor or vulnerable populations. The workshop combined lectures and presentations with case-based and group learning. Using specific cases from countries that have completed these analyses in their own National Commissions, global experts presented the analytical framework and tools developed by the Lancet NCDI Poverty Commission to assess the burden of NCDIs on the poorest populations, identify and prioritize interventions to address that burden, and highlight the targeted skills and focused process required to implement a National Commission.
Expanding on that foundation, the workshop presented approaches for clustering and integrating services for severe NCDIs at different levels of the health system, drawing upon the analysis from the Lancet NCDI Poverty Commission and cases such as the Integrated Chronic Care Clinic in Malawi. Finally, the workshop provided guidance and insight into the national commission process, including how to engage stakeholders in the analytic process, how to mobilize resources, and how to present the findings in an effective manner to impact national policy.
A complete blog post on the National NCDI Poverty Initiator’s Workshop is available here
Number of Participants: 45
Number of Countries: 16
Countries Represented: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe