The WHO Global Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD) Platform (GNP) is a department under the guidance of the WHO Deputy Director-General. The overall purpose of GNP is to coordinate the United Nations system and mobilize non-State actors to unlock their transformative potential to complement and enhance WHO’s work in supporting governments develop whole-of-government and whole-of-society responses to address sustainable development goals (SDGs) target 3.4 and other NCD-related SDGs. This work is accomplished through leveraging the 2 very strong mandates of the Global Coordination Mechanism on NCDs (GCM) and the UN Interagency Task Force on the Prevention and Control of NCDs (UNIATF) given to them by the World Health Assembly and the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) resolutions respectively.

The GNP exists to ensure NCDs stay high on political, health and development agendas. To achieve this, the department takes on the role of a facilitator, a convener and an accelerator of action across sectors and actors to support global, regional and country-level implementation of recommendations and commitments of the United Nations General Assembly High-level Meetings on NCDs. These efforts involve various stakeholders, including UN agencies, intergovernmental organizations, parliamentarians, civil society, the private sector, philanthropic foundations and academia.

Within its mandate GNP engages in a number of cross-cutting initiatives with various teams across the 3 levels and 6 regions of the WHO, as well as partner organizations.

GNP’s strategic priorities include:

  1. Facilitating and strengthening partnerships, governance, coordination and accountability.
  2. High-level advocacy for resource mobilization.
  3. Capacity building for sustained country-level impact.

Apart from GCM and UNIATF, GNP also oversees the work of the WHO Civil Society Working Group on NCDs, implementation of recommendations of the WHO Independent High-level Commission on NCDs, and other high-visibility multi-partner projects in coordination with WHO regions and country offices as well as non-WHO stakeholders.

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