11 February 2013: In a lecture titled “UN Progress on the Global Development Agenda, Post-2015 and Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs),” UN Development Programme (UNDP) Administrator Helen Clark highlighted progress on health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). She also discussed the role of health and NCDs in the post-2015 agenda and commented on how collaboration between development and health actors can support multi-sectoral action on NCDs.

In the lecture, which was delivered at the launch of a series of “The Lancet” journal on the theme of NCDs and Development, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in the UK, Clark recognized progress on some health-related MDGs, such as reducing infant and child mortality and tackling HIV, while stressing uneven progress within countries and across regions. She identified disempowerment, gender inequality, inadequate infrastructure, poverty and poor nutrition as hindering MDG progress on maternal mortality and universal access to reproductive health.

On the post-2015 agenda, Clark said universal health coverage alone will not deliver higher health status, because of socio-economic factors that influence access to health services. She supported addressing the drivers of ill health alongside targets on universal health coverage.

Clark called for collaboration among economic, environment and social actors to address multi-sectoral challenges and advance positive health outcomes. She highlighted several examples, including: Tonga’s recognition of the links between NCDs and gender, hunger and poverty and their strategy to accelerate MDG achievement by addressing NCDs; and a South Pacific workshop, jointly organized by UNDP and the World Health Organization (WHO), which aims to align public health concerns, particularly those on NCDs, with trade agreements.

Clark also described the threat NCDs pose to improving and sustaining human development. She said NCDs can limit aspirations, sap work productivity, push families into poverty and strain overburdened health care systems. She noted the inter-generational impacts of NCDs, particularly in the absence of affordable health care and social protection measures. Clark concluded that “placing NCDs permanently on the global development agenda” will advance overall sustainable human development. [Statement of UNDP Administrator] [Publication: The Lancet: Non-Communicable Diseases Series 2013] [2011 High-level Meeting on Prevention and Control of NCDs]