The Task Force held its 26th meeting on 14–16 April, co-chaired
by WHO and UNDP, with 20 agencies participating. This was the first meeting
since the adoption of the political declaration, which called for United
Nations agencies to scale up and mobilize support to Member States in a
coordinated approach to prevent and control NCDs and promote mental health and
well-being. The declaration further called on UN agencies and other
organizations, within their mandates, to support Member States through catalytic
development assistance, including through the Task Force and the Health4Life
Fund.
In this context, members considered the Task Force’s independent
evaluation and WHO’s management response, which was developed with
contributions from Task Force members, and held an initial discussion on an
options paper that the management response committed to develop. The options
paper set out three broad paths for the Task Force: expand its scope and
delivery, sharpen its focus around a clearer set of priorities, or sunset the
mechanism, while recognizing that variants and combinations of these approaches
also warrant consideration. At the outset, members were invited to situate the
discussion in a wider set of reference points, including the UN80 reform
context, the evaluation findings, and the WHO management response.
The discussion served to surface key questions and considerations
ahead of agencies providing written inputs. Members reflected on how to
maintain and strengthen the Task Force’s added value for coordinated UN support
to countries while navigating tighter and less predictable resources,
particularly for the Secretariat. Participants highlighted the importance of
clarifying what any future ‘focus’ would mean in practice—such as how
priorities would be selected, the balance between country support and global convening
and knowledge-sharing, and how accountability for agreed deliverables would be
strengthened. Governance implications were also noted, including that major
structural changes could require engagement beyond Task Force members given the
mechanism’s intergovernmental mandate.
The meeting also noted that this year’s report to ECOSOC will
reflect that discussions on the Task Force’s future direction are ongoing, and
that next steps will be informed by agencies’ written responses to the issues
raised in the options paper.
Beyond the options paper, members received a progress report on
the Health4Life Fund and reviewed updates across multiple technical areas,
including a specific session dedicated to obesity. On alcohol control, agencies
discussed what practical guidance should be developed for UN entities, taking
into account lessons learned from the tobacco model policy approach. The
meeting also noted that the next Task Force Awards will recognize excellence in
preventing and managing air pollution and chronic respiratory disease.
