In September 2025, the World Health Organization gathered political leaders, civil society, and technical experts at the margins of the UN General Assembly to confront a truth that has long resisted institutional acceptance: the diseases claiming the most lives and years of human potential are not medical failures alone, but failures of how societies organize food, labor, education, and economic life. The fourth annual Multistakeholder Gathering on NCDs and Mental Health pressed governments to move beyond siloed health ministries toward coordinated, cross-sector governance — a shift as much po
WHO Convenes Global Leaders on Coordinated NCD and Mental Health Response
The diseases killing millions are rooted in systems far beyond the hospital
Mark
Why does it matter that this gathering happens at the UN General Assembly, specifically? Why not just a health conference?
Mimi
Because the whole point is that health ministers alone cannot solve this. You need finance ministers, trade negotiators, education officials in the room. The UN General Assembly is where those people already gather. It's the only venue where you can realistically get them all to the same table.
Mark
You mention whole-of-government approaches as proven effective. What does that actually look like in practice?
Mimi
It means a country's finance ministry considers health outcomes when setting agricultural subsidies. It means the education ministry designs school meals and physical activity policies as core curriculum, not afterthoughts. It means trade policy accounts for the health impact of food imports. Most countries don't do this yet. The ones that are trying—they're learning as they go.
Mark
The briefs on governance, data sharing, and narrative-building—why those three specifically?
Mimi
Governance is the structure: how do you actually coordinate across sectors? Data sharing is the fuel: you can't act on what you don't measure or can't access. And narrative is the engine: data alone doesn't move politicians. Stories about real people do. You need all three working together.
Mark
Is there a risk that focusing on narratives and storytelling dilutes the scientific evidence?
Mimi
No, it's the opposite. The briefs are explicitly evidence-informed. The point is that evidence exists, but it doesn't travel well on its own. A study showing that walkable neighborhoods reduce heart disease is true and important. But a story about a woman who recovered her health when her city redesigned its streets—that makes the evidence real to a mayor who controls urban planning.
Mark
What happens after the briefs are launched? Do countries actually use them?
Mimi
That's the open question. The gathering creates momentum and visibility. The briefs give countries a roadmap. But sustaining this requires political will that outlasts the conference cycle. That's why they keep doing this every year—to keep the pressure on, to show countries what peers are doing, to remind leaders this isn't optional.
Le Pouls
- Noncommunicable diseases and mental health conditions are killing and disabling millions, yet the systems most responsible — food, labor, urban design, economic inequality — remain largely outside the reach of health policy.
- The gathering exposed a persistent tension: whole-of-government approaches have proven effective where implemented, but institutional turf wars, budget shifts, and political turnover keep dismantling the coordination they require.
- Organizers moved deliberately from abstract commitment to practical exchange, centering country experiences of what has worked and what has collapsed, betting that peer evidence travels further than global declarations.
- Recognizing that data alone rarely moves governments, the gathering introduced narrative-building as a formal policy tool — stories of individuals and communities as instruments of political mobilization, not just moral appeal.
- Three new issue briefs on governance structures, cross-departmental data-sharing, and narrative strategy were launched to give countries concrete frameworks for sustaining multisectoral responses beyond the momentum of any single meeting.
In September 2025, the World Health Organization gathered political leaders, civil society, and technical experts at the margins of the UN General Assembly to confront a truth that has long resisted institutional acceptance: the diseases claiming the most lives and years of human potential are not medical failures alone, but failures of how societies organize food, labor, education, and economic life. The fourth annual Multistakeholder Gathering on NCDs and Mental Health pressed governments to move beyond siloed health ministries toward coordinated, cross-sector governance — a shift as much political and cultural as it is administrative. New tools in governance design, data-sharing, and narrative-building were offered not as solutions, but as instruments for the harder work of sustaining collective will across shifting political cycles.
Noncommunicable diseases and mental health disorders have become the defining health crises of our era — not because they are new, but because the world has finally begun to reckon with how poorly equipped traditional health governance is to address them. In September 2025, the WHO, the NCD Alliance, and the World Diabetes Foundation convened the fourth annual Multistakeholder Gathering alongside the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs and Mental Health, bringing together political leaders, government technical staff, and civil society to press a radical but evidence-backed premise: that diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and mental illness are rooted in food systems, labor conditions, urban design, and economic inequality — domains that health ministries do not control.
Since 2022, the WHO Global Coordination Mechanism on NCDs has organized these annual gatherings to build sustained momentum for whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches. The evidence is now substantial that countries aligning policy across finance, trade, education, and economic development sectors achieve measurable progress. The obstacle is durability — political cycles shift, budgets are redirected, and institutional boundaries reassert themselves.
The 2025 gathering was designed to move past declaration toward implementation. Countries were invited to share honest accounts of what coordination has looked like in practice — what held and what fell apart. Organizers also made a deliberate bet on storytelling: alongside data-driven policy frameworks, they introduced powerful personal and community narratives as tools for mobilizing political will, understanding that numbers inform but stories compel.
Three issue briefs launched at the gathering addressed the gaps most likely to undermine progress: how to build governance structures that keep multiple sectors aligned over time, how to break down the data silos that prevent governments from sharing health-relevant information across departments, and how to craft narratives that make the case for multisectoral action rather than health-sector action alone. A child's risk of type 2 diabetes, the gathering reminded its participants, is shaped by her school's food environment, her neighborhood's design, her family's economic security, and her access to mental health care — none of it the health ministry's traditional domain. The work ahead is as much about how governments organize themselves and tell their stories as it is about any clinical intervention.
Noncommunicable diseases and mental health disorders have become defining health crises of our time—not because they are new, but because they are now recognized as problems that no single government ministry can solve alone. The WHO, alongside the NCD Alliance and the World Diabetes Foundation, convened global leaders in September 2025 to confront a stubborn reality: the diseases killing and disabling millions of people worldwide are rooted in systems that span far beyond the hospital or clinic.
The fourth annual Multistakeholder Gathering brought together political leaders, government technical staff, and civil society representatives at the margins of the UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs and Mental Health. The gathering's premise is straightforward but radical in practice: effective prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases requires coordinated policy across finance ministries, trade departments, education systems, economic development agencies, treasuries, and technology sectors. The root causes of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and mental illness live in these domains—in food systems, labor conditions, urban design, economic inequality, and access to information. Treating them as purely medical problems has failed.
Since 2022, the WHO Global Coordination Mechanism on NCDs has organized these annual gatherings alongside the UN General Assembly to build momentum for what health officials call whole-of-government and whole-of-society approaches. The evidence supporting this strategy is now substantial: countries that align their policies across multiple sectors—rather than siloing health decisions within health ministries—have achieved measurable progress in preventing and controlling noncommunicable diseases. The challenge is that this kind of coordination is difficult to sustain. Political cycles shift. Budget priorities change. Institutional turf wars persist.
The 2025 gathering aimed to move beyond abstract commitment to practical implementation. Organizers structured the event around country experiences, inviting nations to share what has worked and what has failed. They emphasized data-driven approaches and evidence-informed policy, recognizing that leaders respond to numbers and outcomes. But they also understood something equally important: that numbers alone do not move governments. Stories do. The gathering introduced what organizers called powerful narratives—accounts of individuals and communities affected by noncommunicable diseases and mental health conditions—as tools to mobilize political will.
Three new issue briefs were launched at the gathering, each addressing a critical gap in the global response. The first focused on governance structures—how to actually build and maintain the institutional machinery that keeps multiple sectors talking and aligned. The second addressed data sharing, a persistent obstacle: health data often lives in silos, and governments struggle to coordinate information across departments. The third examined narrative-building itself, exploring how to craft and communicate stories that drive multisectoral action rather than just health-sector action.
What emerges from this gathering is a recognition that the burden of noncommunicable diseases and mental health conditions cannot be addressed through health policy alone. A child's risk of developing type 2 diabetes is shaped by her school's food policies, her neighborhood's walkability, her family's economic security, and her access to mental health support—none of which fall under the health ministry's traditional purview. The same is true for depression, heart disease, and countless other conditions. The work ahead requires governments to think differently about how they organize themselves, how they share information, and how they tell the story of why this matters.
Citations marquantes
Effective NCD prevention and control require coordinated action across sectors, as many root causes and consequences lie beyond health— WHO Global Coordination Mechanism on NCDs
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