Partners Forum for Action against Chronic Disease

16 July 2009

Twenty five companies, mainly from the pharmaceutical and food and beverage industries, came together in Washington DC on July 16th to discuss how business can contribute to the fight against chronic disease by working in partnership with government health agencies and NGOs. The meeting, hosted by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the World Economic Forum, was one of a number of events inputting into to the creation of a ‘Partners Forum for Action against Chronic Disease’ – an ambitious platform bringing together business, government and civil society to inspire, facilitate and support concrete cross-sectoral action for the prevention and treatment of chronic disease.
 
In all but the least developed countries, chronic disease – such as strokes, diabetes, cancers and heart disease – is hugely widespread and one of the greatest threats to society as it reduces people’s productivity while potentially bankrupting heath services due to the cost of treatment. However, the majority of these diseases are entirely preventable through lifestyle change: reducing salt and fat, active living, eating fresh fruit and vegetables, not smoking and reducing alcohol intake.
 
Huge societal change from influencing human behaviour to access to healthier foods, from education to health care provision are required and only a cross-sectoral approach can attempt to tackle such complexity.
 
The Partners Forum aims to hugely scale up cross-sectoral action including successful stories such as Ciclovía where large areas of many cities in the Americas are closed to traffic to encourage running and cycling; Sesame Workshop’s ‘Healthy Habits for Life’ bringing health education into its programmes for children; and initiatives such as ‘Trans Fat Free Americas’ which continues to hugely reduce the use of dangerous fats.
 
At the meeting, Darian Stibbe of The Partnering Initiative made a presentation on what it takes to create a strong, effective partnership from the challenges of working with different sectors to the process of partnering. He also facilitated a working group on providing healthier food alternatives and Audra Jones, the IBLF Americas Director, facilitated a working group on active living.
 
The Partners Forum is being developed by PAHO in collaboration with IBLF, WEF and a number of other organisations. The Partnering Initiative is playing a key role in strategic development of the initiative and will be implementing a major programme to build the capacity of PAHO and government health agency staff, as well as NGOs and businesses, to understand and partner effectively.

For more information on this event, or The Partners Forum, please contact Darian Stibbe at Firstname.Lastname@iblf.org