WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION
ORGANISATION MONDIALE DE LA SANTE
REGIONAL OFFICE FOR THE WESTERN PACIFIC BUREAU REGIONAL DU PACIFIQUE OCCIDENTAL
REGIONAL COMMITTEE Sixty-fourth session Manila, Philippines 21-25 October 2013 Agenda item 14
WPRIRC64/NG0/6 23 October 2013 ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
STATEMENT BY THE FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ALLIANCE By Dr Ulysses Dorotheo, Chair, Board of Directors
The Framework Convention Alliance (FCA) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to discussions at the Sixty-fourth Session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific, particularly on agenda item 14: Noncommunicable Diseases. · FCA congratulates WHO Member States in the Western Pacific Region for their determination to tackle noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) by adopting the Global Action Plan and the global voluntary targets on NCDs at the 66 111 World Health Assembly. 1 Noting that about onethird of the world's smokers live in the Western Pacific region and that two people die each minute from tobacco-related disease in the region2 FCA wishes to reiterate its full support for the efforts of Member States and WHO to strengthen the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) and accelerate its implementation. Additional components of the NCD global architecture remain to be finalized, including an NCD Global Coordination Mechanism. A coordinated response to NCDs with regards to tobacco control, as set out in the NCD Global Action Plan, is meant to support and accelerate implementation of all provisions of the WHO FCTC. The NCD Global Coordination Mechanism should work in synergy with the WHO FCTC, and the FCTC Conference ofthe Parties (COP) is the primary global forum for discussions on tobacco control implementation and accountability. FCA would also like to highlight the critical importance of including tobacco control in the post-2015 development agenda. Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable disease and death worldwide, including in the Western Pacific, and presents a threat to sustainable development. Clear and ambitious commitments are needed to reduce the burden of disease and the number of deaths caused by tobacco. The recently adopted global target for tobacco use prevalence (30 percent relative reduction by the year 2025)3 should serve as the technical basis for a tobacco-related target in the post-2015 development agenda. WHA resolution WHA66.10 - Follow-up to the Political Declaration of the High-level Meeting of the General Assembly on the Prevention and Control ofNon-communicableDjseases. 2 WH0.2013. Tobacco Fact Sheet - Tobacco epidemic in the Western Pacific Region, Available at: http://www. wpro.who.intlmediacentre/factsheets/fs 201203 tobacco/en/index.html 3 WHAresolution WHA66.10 1
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Finally, we note that according to the document WPRIRC64/8, "additional resources are needed to build capacity of national NCD prevention and control programmes" (-.5). FCA calls on Member States and WHO to step up resource mobilization to tackle the tobacco and NCD epidemics.