Partnerships in noncommunicable disease prevention and control

Abstract

The World Health Organization (WHO) Noncommunicable Disease (NCD) Global Action Plan 2013–2020 and the WHO Action Plan for NCD in South-East Asia, 2013–2020, have identified advocacy, partnerships, and leaderships as a key strategic action area. The paper describes the proceedings of the plenary session titled “Partnerships in NCD Prevention and Control” which was held at the World NCD Congress at Chandigarh, India, in November 2017. Besides, a review of various data sources and literature was also carried to search for case studies related to successful partnership models in NCD prevention and control. This review describes the role of multiple partners such as the civil society, research organizations, private sector which includes the private health-care sector, pharmaceutical and the food industry, and other national and international experiences in multistakeholder partnerships to combat NCDs. Civil societies play a range of roles from generating evidence to advocating policies, providing technical support, partnering in implementation to monitoring commitments' direct provision of services, and ensuring accountability. Research organizations provide the much-needed evidence for informed policy-making. The key challenges in building a partnership are lack of clarity in roles and responsibilities of each partner in the alliance, resource constraints, imbalance of benefits and power between the partners, organizational difficulties, and differences in philosophies. A clear understanding of roles, responsibilities, interests and incentives of each of the partners, regular communication, and give-and-take philosophy are required to create effective partnerships. A mechanism of feedback channel is essential to monitor the progress and relevance. Communities should remain the central stakeholder in any partnership.