Legislators initiative

NCD and mental health legislators’ report to be launched at the Health20 Summit, WHO, Geneva, 19-20 June 2025

Following a process that includes a set of four hearings and submission of expert evidence, the 2025 Health20 Summit will be the venue for the launch of the NCD and mental health legislators’ report. Further information on the summit that will take place in WHO, Geneva, including information on registration is available here. The legislators’ report, will be part of a series of events over two days. This year’s summit will have three themes: (i) reimagining partnerships and rebuilding trust in global health; (ii) from declarations to action: the power of legislators in global health; and (iii) financing the future of health: a new pact for innovation.

The H20 Summit is an independent annual platform in support of the G20 Presidency agendas and has been launched in Geneva in 2018 by The G20 Health and Development Partnership’s Global Ambassadors and Member Organizations. By providing an inclusive and collaborative platform between the traditional global health community and relevant sectors including the world of politics and finance, the discussions at the H20 summit help to create interdependencies and elevate global health challenges higher-up the political agendas of G20 policy-makers and International Organizations. The H20 summits emphasize that partnerships are critical in mobilizing political action to ensure healthier and sustainable societies and economies to meet the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

New legislators’ initiative announced at the H20 between UN NCD Task Force and G20&G7 Health and Development Partnership

A bold an exciting new collaboration was announced on 19 June 2024 at the start of the 2024 H20 meeting in Geneva, between the G20&G7 Health and Development Partnership and the UN Inter-Agency Task Force and Health4Life Fund to catalyze domestic and international multisectoral partnerships and scale up financing to support countries reduce the socioeconomic impact of NCDs and mental health conditions.

The Task Force and G20&G7 Health and Development Partnership will work together to strengthen governance for NCDs and mental health and their risk factors at global, regional and country level through existing and emerging parliamentary forums and caucuses. The collaboration will provide space for high-level policy discussions around NCDs and mental health as part of the broader development agenda, as well as promoting an ever stronger and more coherent One-UN action on NCDs and mental health. The G20&G7 Health and Development Partnership will also support efforts to mobilize resources for UN system action and the Health4Life Fund to support countries scale up multisectoral action on NCDs and mental health.

In the first instance, the collaboration will develop an initiative to encourage legislators to raise awareness, be involved in and actively promote action to tackle NCDs and improving mental health.

‘This seminal legislators initiative could not be more timely given next year’s dedicated meeting to NCDs and mental health at the United Nations General Assembly’ said Alan Donnelly, Chair of the G20&G7 Health and Development Partnership, at today’s meeting held at the World Health Organization.

‘Today here at the H20, the G20&G7 Health and Development Partnership launched a report on antimicrobial resistance, that we have developed across the 56 parliaments of the Commonwealth, the 57 parliaments in the Francophonie, and with members of the European Parliament. This will encourage national and regional parliaments to take action on antimicrobial resistance. We now turn our attention to NCDs and mental health’, Donnelly added.

‘We believe that legislators have a crucial role in leading action on NCDs and improving mental health’ Hatice Beton, Chief Executive of the G20&G7 Health and Development Partnership said. ‘The costs of these diseases and conditions to the global economies will have run into trillions of dollars by the end of the decade. It’s going to be impossible to meet a large number of SDG targets and therefore achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda if we don’t sort out NCDs and mental health conditions’ Beton emphasized.

Nick Banatvala, Head of the Task Force and Health4Life Secretariat outlined why legislators are crucial to an effective response, ‘Many of the most effective interventions for tackling NCDs such as taxing and reducing access and availability of unhealthy products require regulatory, fiscal and legislative action – which of course are the responsibilities of parliamentarians’, before adding, ‘Legislators have a crucial role to hold governments account for delivering health service and promoting local action in the community. ‘Working with G20&G7 Health and Development Partnership with provide us with unparalleled experience, expertise and networks to move this agenda forward’, he said.

Donnelly, who moderated last month’s World Health Assembly’s Health4Life side event ministerial segment, is clear that this collaboration has huge potential. ‘Working with the Task Force, we will be able to raise awareness and promote the importance of NCDs and mental health as part of the broader development agenda across the G20 and G7 ahead of the fourth high-level meeting on NCDs next year and beyond.’

The two-day 2024 H20 summit was held on 19–20 June 2024.