A vibrant NCD civil society equipped to deliver on its main roles: create awareness, improve access, advocate for action and ensure accountability, is essential to driving national progress and meeting the global NCD targets. 

To support NCD alliances in delivering on these roles, the NCD Alliance launched the Advocacy Institute in 2017, becoming an NCDA’s flagship capacity development initiative. Through multi-year partnerships with organisations and NCD alliances across selected low-and-middle-income countries, the Institute supports coalition-building with its Seed Programme, and context-specific, impact-driven advocacy campaigns with its Accelerator Programme.

The Advocacy Institute’s first phase consisted of a three-year cycle. A total of nine NCD alliances were supported via the Seed Programme (Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nigeria, Philippines, and Vietnam), of which six alliances were founded during the programme. The Accelerator Programme supported five established alliances (Brazil, Colombia, India, Mexico and South Africa).

Our newly published Impact Report demonstrates the results of the first phase from 2017-2019, demonstrating the efficacy of its Seed and Accelerator programmes in the formation of six new NCD alliances, the strengthening of nine existing ones, the development of strategic advocacy campaigns and the achievement of relevant policy wins. The report showcases exemplary advocacy and community building campaigns supported by the Advocacy Institute, including:

• Mexico Salud-Hable Coalition’s #VotoSaludable (#HealthyVote) digital campaign positioning the lack of NCD and health-focus in the 2018 presidential election campaign;
• Healthy India Alliance’s regional strategy to convene, mobilise and meaningfully involve people living with NCDs and youth from the country’s different regions in the alliance’s strategic planning;
• NCD-Vietnam’s successfully advocacy for a national alcohol control law that was approved by the National Assembly in June 2019;
• Healthy Philippines Alliance’s advocacy efforts supporting a national UHC law that was approved in April 2019 supported by the President.

"NCDA's Advocacy Institute has been extremely valuable for HIA. It has enabled us to spread our wings as a national NCD alliance, giving us a strong platform to engage with multiple government and non-government partners, and be a unified voice for [civil society organisation], [people living with NCDs] and young people, on key NCD issues, at the national and sub-national levels." - Healthy India Alliance