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Health4Life Fund

Health4Life Fund (the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund to Catalyze Country Action for Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health) has been established to galvanize domestic financing and scale up country action for the prevention and control of NCDs and for improving mental health.

The Fund supports governments, the UN development system and other partners to work together towards common NCD and mental health results, in a way that responds to the global, regional and country level commitments on NCDs and mental health.

The Fund was established by UNDP, UNICEF and WHO – three members of the NCD Task Force. The Fund is based on established financing-for-development and aid- & development-effectiveness principles.

The 2025 political declaration on NCDs and mental health called upon ‘UN agencies, regional and intergovernmental organizations, within their respective mandates, to support Member States through catalytic development assistance, including through the Task Force and the Health4Life Fund’.

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24 May 2021

Memorandum of Understanding
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In 2025, WHO published its first ever strategy on multi-partner trust funds (MPTFs) and joint programs (collectively known as inter-agency pooled funds). WHO currently hosts three MPTFs, including the Health4Life Fund.

Inter-agency pooled funds provide significant opportunities for WHO to work with partners by maximizing efficiencies and impact on health and development. MPTFs and Joint Programs are especially important for driving forward multisectoral action, which is critical in reaching many of the targets of the health SDGs. Inter-agency pooled funds are an important part of the UN reform process, improving collaboration and reducing programmatic fragmentation across humanitarian, peace and security, and sustainable development.

2 March 2025

Multi-partner Trust Funds and Joint Programs
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Steering Committee

Health4Life Fund is governed by a Steering Committee consisting of UNDP, UNICEF, WHO, the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office  and the governments of Kenya, Thailand and Uruguay. The Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office is an ex-officio member of the Steering Committee, serving as the administrative interface between investors and the Steering Committee. The NCD Alliance and United for Global Mental Health represent civil society on the Steering Committee. Day-to-day activities are managed by the Health4Life Fund Secretariat and senior staff from UNDP, UNICEF and WHO.

 

News

Global NCD compact highlights value of UN NCD and Mental Health multi-partner trust fund

Mar 10, 2026, 09:28 by User Not Found

An outcome of the International Strategic Dialogue on Noncommunicable Diseases and the Sustainable Development Goals hosted by the Government of Ghana, Government of Norway and the World Health Organization in April 2022, was the Global Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD) Compact 2020-2030.

The NCD Compact calls on all countries to accelerate the progress towards the NCD-related SDG.

The NCD Compact:

  • highlights that NCDs continue to receive 1- 2% of all official development assistance (ODA) for health
  • draws attention to the recently established UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund to catalyze country action for NCDs and Mental Health as a global financing partnership to support LMICs to mobilize domestic resources and to scale up action

Identifies five concrete actions, one of which is to invest adequate, predictable, and sustained resources for the prevention and control of NCDs, through domestic, bilateral, and multilateral channels including through the UN Multi-Partner Trust Fund.