Category Archives: News

News

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NCD Commission stakeholder hearing

March 4-5, 2019: Dr. Sania Nishtar attended a stakeholder hearing of working group 3 of the High-Level Commission on NCDs in New York on March 4-5. The meeting was convened by the World Economic Forum, and the Governments of USA and Kenya.

Prince Mahidol Award Conference

February 1, 2019: Dr. Sania Nishtar attended the Prime Prince Mahidol Award Conference and joined the plenary panel on “The Political Economy of the Determinants of NCDs”. The plenary session was intended to set the stage for several parallel sessions that followed that day. The purpose was to discuss thestrategies for tackling major NCD risk factors (unhealthy diets, tobacco use, harmful use of alcohol, physical inactivity and environmental pollution) and the underlying determinants, focusing on the implementation of the cost-effective interventions to achieve SDG3.4 and other NCD-related targets; to share and learn from national, regional and global experiences in addressing the main risk factors of NCDs and their social, economic, commercial and political determinants and to discuss how to translate these experiences to other contexts; and to identify knowledge gaps and strategies to address them.

Annual meeting of the Economic Forum, Davos

January 23, 2019: At the 2019 Annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Dr Sania Nishtar joined a plenary panel alongwith Bill Gates, Tedros Adanhom, DG WHO, the Chair of GAVI’s board and Executive Director of the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria to discuss financial innovation in global health. The panel discussion can be accessed here

PACC notification

January 9, 2019: Dr. Sania Nishtar has been appointed as the Chair of the Poverty Alleviation Coordination Council by the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The Council has a wide-ranging mandate, ranging from coordination of the fragmented social safety net arrangements in the country and planning to catalyzing research and policy support to various entities.

Keynote Speech at the Raffles Dialogue

November 28, 2018: Dr. Sania Nishtar delivered a Keynote Speech at the Third Raffles Dialogue in Singaporeon the Future of Human Well-Being and Security. She outlined the nature of global challenges and prospects for quantum change. She paid rich tribute to Singapore: “a country on top of the world’s human capital rankings, with the lowermost child mortality, a country that has eradiated extreme poverty and made massive strides to counter NCDs, the global leader in the disability transition and champion of the whole of government approach”. She said that in order to address global challenges “what we need to change are institutional behaviours—and to change behaviours we must change is the design of institutions and the incentive structures”. She further added“I believe you [Singapore] are well positioned to facilitate development of new rules of the game, and more broadly respect for international rules and the multilateral system”. The text of her speech can be accessed here

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Keynote Speech at the Ministerial Conference on Diabetes

November 26, 2018: Delivering the keynote speech at the ministerial conference on diabetes in her capacity as Co-Chair of WHO High-level Commission on Non-Communicable Diseases, Dr. Sania Nishtar termed diabetes as “the biggest epidemic of the 21st century”. The meeting was hosted by the government of Singapore. The keynote speech session was attended by the Deputy Prime MinisterShanmugaratnam, Minister of Health of Singapore, Gan Kim Young, and 11 health ministers of the Asia Pacific region. In her keynote speech she emphasized that “NCDs are forcing us to think very differently. They compel us to think about how to organize a new international response, and who to engage; NCDs are carving out a place in a future health ecosystem and are flagging important normative implications in this regard; and they are driving the needle on health at a very different level, domestically”. The text of the speech can be accessed here. On The same day Dr. Nishtar appeared in an interview with Singapore minister of Health Dr. Amy Khor in the program Singapore Tonight, exchanging views on diabetes epidemic. The Interview can be watchedhere

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Global Agenda Council on the Future of Healthcare

November 11-12, 2018: The annual meeting of the Global Agenda Council of the World Economic Forum, the global gathering of thinks tanks was held in Dubai this week. Dr Sania Nishtar has been a member of the health and wellbeing-related Global Agenda Councils since their initiation 11 years ago and also attended this year’s meetings. Council members leverage networks to cross-pollinate thinking in pursuit of a systemic approaches to solutions. The Council on the Future of Health and Healthcare is comprised of expert stakeholders representing the public and private healthcare sectors and working together to provide insights on how the evolution of global Health and Healthcare will affect us all in the decades to come including through the implementation of the Fourth industrial revolution. Dr. Nishtar was chair of the Council from 2016-2018 and has now handed over the chairing role to Helen Clark.

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Global Coordination Mechanism on NCDs

November 6, 2018: The Global Coordination Mechanism on NCDs’ General Meeting of its participants was held in Geneva from 5 to 6 November 2018 and was hosted by the Government of Switzerland. Dr. Sania Nishtar was the closing speaker. In her speech she emphasized that “the future of health and societies appears to have a deep interplay with NCDs—but transformations are happening both outside of the health sector and largely in the private sector”. She further added that “The future of health can be about the future of NCDs, but many governance imperatives are emerging, in relation to norms and standards and ethical, patient safety, regulatory and human resource capacity issues. There is a need to explore how we will overcome the financial access barriers which will deepen and ensure access to medicines for all”. Her speech can be viewed here

Second meeting of the IAB on Global Health of the government of Germany

November 5, 2018: The International Advisory Board (IAB) on Global Health of the Federal Government of Germany held its second meeting in Berlin on November 5-6. Dr Sania Nishtar participated in her capacity as a member of the IAB. The IAB is providing inputs towards the process of development of Germany’s Global Health Strategy and, as part of that process, was briefed at the German Ministry of health and the ministry of Education and Research. The Board also met the Federal Minister of Health, Jens Spahn.

World Oncology Forum Task Force

November 1, 2018: The first meeting of the of the World Oncology Forum Task Force was held in Villa Veronesi in Milan from November 1-3. Since Dr. Sania Nishtar was unable to participate in person, she delivered her opening address via a virtual link. She outlined how cancer and management of cancer was at the heart of most of the innovations in therapeutics today and what this was heralding for healthcare patters and health systems. She outlined the imperative for the establishment of new norms, capacities and regulatory systems. The World Oncology Forum has previously been very visible in relation to Cancer advocacy—their best-known campaigns appeals include: “Stop Cancer now!”“Treat the treatable” “Prevent the preventable” and “From Research to Policy”.

Dr. Sania Nishtar invited to chair the board of BISP, Pakistan acclaimed safety net institution

October 30, 2018: According to a press release issued by the Government of Pakistan, Dr. Sania Nishtar has bee invited to chair the board of BISP, Pakistan acclaimed safety net institution. Following her acceptance, she has been appointed today. the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) is the Government of Pakistan’s National Cash Transfer Programme and its premier safety net institution, which currently runs a targeted USD 1.15 billion national-level cash transfer program for 5.5 million poor and marginalized women. The immediate objective of the Programme consumption smoothing and cushioning the negative effects of slow economic growth.Its long-term objectives are to meet the targets of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to eradicate extreme and chronic poverty and empowerment of women.The Programmewas established through an Act of Parliament and works under the executive patronage of Prime Minister.

The Global Conference on Primary Health Care

October 26, 2918: The Global Conference on Primary Health Care was convened in Kazakhstan on the occasion of the 40thP anniversary of the Declaration of Alma Atafrom 25-26 October 2018. The conference was hosted by the Government of Kazakhstan, in joint coordination with the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund, at the Palace of Independence in Astana. The conference aimed to renew political commitment to placing primary health care (PHC) at the heart of achieving universal health coverage (UHC) and the Sustainable Development Agenda. Charing and moderating the session on NCDs at the event, Dr. Sania Nishtar said “there can be no UHC without attention to NCDs—the world’s biggest killers”. Several country representatives also spoke on the panel, including Anda Caska, Minister of Health of Latvia, Deputy Minister Pinovich of Belarus and representatives of Cuba and the host country.

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