The Political Declaration of the High-Level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of Non-communicable Diseases, adopted by Heads of State and Government in September 2011, provides a road map for Member States and WHO to address the noncommunicable disease epidemic, guided by the WHO Global Strategy for Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases and its related action plan (WHA61.14, 2008).
Governments are expected to adhere to the commitments included in the Political Declaration, by strengthening national action against noncommunicable diseases in the three key components of the global strategy: surveillance, prevention, and management. In addition, the Political Declaration specifically requests WHO to scale up its technical support and capacity-building to countries, develop a global monitoring framework and recommendations for a set of voluntary global targets, and exercise a leading and coordinating role within the United Nations system towards updating the action plan.
Progress will be assessed during the Sixty-eighth UN General Assembly in 2014. Like countries in other regions, Member States of the Eastern Mediterranean Region should take immediate steps to review and elaborate their health plans and put in place, by 2013, comprehensive national plans for prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases.
