The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India (MoHFW, GoI), recently realigned at National NCD Programme and released updated Operational Guidelines of NP-NCD (2023-2030). One of the critical components under these guidelines is, Advocacy and Network with People Living with NCDs. This landmark development is testament to the efforts made by HIA and its member organisations across multiple stakeholders and platforms to steer attention and garner buy-in with a specific focus on ensuring that lived experience champions are recognised as experts and key stakeholders in the national and sub-national NCD response in India.

In 2010, the Government of India launched the National Programme for NCDs (NP-NCD) (renamed in 2023) (formerly NPCDCS) to combat NCDs. Since then, the Programme has been scaled-up at the pan-India level. NP-NCD aims to provide technical, financial and logistics support to the state governments, and thereby supplement the efforts of the states towards the prevention and control of NCDs. The Programme focuses on health promotion, screening, early diagnosis and management of individuals with NCDs along with addressing their risk factors.

Strategic Institute for Public Health Education and Research (SIPHER) and HIA constituted a state-level multi-stakeholder Working Group on Non-Communicable Diseases and Universal Health Coverage comprising of People Living with NCDs, government representatives, medical professionals, academic institutions, civil society organisations, and youth representatives in Punjab. SIPHER along with HIA led development of “Guidelines for meaningful involvement of People living with NCDs and CSOs” with inputs from the above-mentioned working group members. The first virtual meeting of the multi-stakeholder working group on NCDs and UHC in Punjab was conducted on August 17, 2022. The second virtual meeting of the multi-stakeholder working group on NCDs and UHC in Punjab will be conducted on September 15, 2023 to discuss the opportunity of synergising the state level guidelines on meaningfully involving people living with NCDs and CSOs in the state’s NCD and UHC action plans released in 2022 with the NP-NCD operational guidelines. The meeting will garner recommendations from the multi-stakeholder working group of Punjab on how to strengthen the state level operationalisation of NP-NCD guidelines and develop and Action Template to aid the state governments in ensuring meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs.