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FIND’s Intervention on Accelerating Action on NCDs for a Healthier, Fairer Future

G20

Delivered by Dr Dayo Adetifa
27 March 2025

FIND commends South Africa for the focus on access to NCD services in its G20 presidency. As the world’s leading causes of death, non-communicable diseases must be addressed with urgency, innovation, and equity. The G20’s focus on expanding access to NCD services, particularly at the primary care level, marks a critical step toward achieving health for all.

#HealthForAll cannot be achieved without #DiagnosisForAll! Diagnostics are central to this effort. Accurate, early diagnosis and management is key to reducing the NCD burden. Diagnostics facilitate timely behaviour change, enable early detection that prevents complications, and lowers the health and economic costs of chronic conditions. Yet, diagnostics represent the biggest gap in the cascade of care, with millions of Disability-Adjusted Life Years as the cost of delayed or missed diagnoses, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.

FIND is committed to closing this gap. We are working with WHO as well as partners across countries to expand access to affordable, fit-for-purpose diagnostics for diabetes, cardiometabolic conditions, and cervical cancer through performance evaluation, implementation research, and capacity strengthening.

As part of the G20’s response to NCDs we urge you to:

  1. Integrate NCD diagnostics into primary healthcare systems and UHC benefit packages.
  2. Invest in end-to-end strategies for development and deployment of affordable, fit-for-purpose diagnostics. This includes supporting R&D, promoting local manufacturing efforts, streamlining regulatory approvals, and leveraging pooled procurement.
  3. Strengthen diagnostic infrastructure and workforce capacity, and leverage digital tools to enable longitudinal NCD care and management at the primary care level.

As proposed in the issue note, we fully support the development of a strategic roadmap to improve access to NCD diagnostics and related products and look forward to contributing to the NCD collaboration network. Diagnostics are foundational to equitable NCD care. Strengthening access to NCD screening, diagnosis and management testing will help close the care gap, promote equitable NCD care and build healthier futures for all.

Thank you.