Opening speech at WHO high-level meeting on non-communicable diseases

Member States of the European Region of the World Health Organization, Ministers, Excellencies,  Ambassadors, Assistant Director General, Assistant Secretary-General, Regional Director, ladies and gentlemen;

On behalf of the Norwegian Government, I warmly welcome you all to Oslo.

I would like to thank the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva and the World Health Organization regional office in Copenhagen for giving us the opportunity to host this important consultation.

I would also like to thank the WHO offices in Geneva and Copenhagen for the excellent work they have done in helping preparing for this consultation.

Furthermore, I would like to thank each and every Member State and each single representative in this room for taking the take the time and effort to come here to Oslo and share their opinions with us.

I would like to thank everyone here in Norway involved in the preparations for this meeting. Among them, I would especially like to mention the representatives from Norwegian non-governmental organizations, who prepared a statement yesterday expressing experiences from their work against non-communicable diseases. Their contributions are valued.

I would also like to congratulate my Russian colleagues and WHO in the organization of the first Ministerial Global Conference on Healthy Lifestyles and non-communicable diseases in Moscow in April 2011. I very much look forward to it.

I would like to give you some perspectives on non-communicable diseases from Norway:

Historically, the wealth of the Norwegian nation is a fairly recent phenomenon. A few generations back, we were among the poorest, developing countries of the western world.

In Norway eighty years ago, tuberculosis was as common a cause of death as cancer. Today, almost no one dies from tuberculosis in Norway, whereas cancer accounts for more than one fourth of all deaths. The other major non-communicable disease-group, coronary heart disease, accounts for even more deaths.

This is a development that all regions of Europe – indeed, most regions of the world – either have gone through, are going through, or most likely will be going through in the near future. Non-communicable diseases are becoming a major health challenge all over the world.

Norway is among the countries spending the most on health and social services in the world. One fourth of our national budget is spent on these issues. Still, we do not meet all expectations of our population. The pattern of disease is changing and our population is ageing. Therefore, we constantly need to revise and evaluate the performance of our health system.

A fundamental principle for the Norwegian health service is that it is designed to be equally accessible to all residents, regardless of social or economic status. This is a principle I personally hope never will be altered.

Still, we now see that non-communicable diseases pose a threat to the even distribution of good health in our population. We have proof that risk behaviour for developing non-communicable diseases is more likely to occur among population groups with low levels of education. The gap in life expectancy between different parts of Oslo is as much as 12 years. Social inequalities in health need to be addressed.

I am currently in the middle of implementing a major reform of the Norwegian health sector where a central element is to strengthen the relative importance of prevention and health promotion, on national as well as regional and local levels. A lot of work still remains in order to fully implement the reform, but I believe it could provide results and experiences which could be valuable also to other countries.

Even though the health sector reform will contribute to a strengthened focus on prevention, we know the health system cannot cope with non-communicable diseases alone. Preventing disease and preserving good health is the responsibility of all policy makers. To address the causes of non-communicable diseases we need active involvement of sectors like planning, finance, industry, trade, education, culture and agriculture.

In order to build inter-sectorial momentum and understanding for addressing risk factors for non-communicable diseases, Norway has developed Action Plans for healthy diet and physical activity. The Action Plans build upon the work and guidelines developed by WHO.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Health and Care Service is responsible for the Norwegian Alcohol and Tobacco Control Acts. We are currently in the process of revising the Tobacco Control Act. In this regard we have benefited greatly from a WHO assessment of Norwegian tobacco policy conducted this spring. I hereby thank you for your important contribution to our work.

Finally, I would like to emphasize the importance of an active civil society in order to achieve our goal of good health for all. In relation to non-communicable diseases, civil society provides crucial services like public education and awareness. They also play a key role in setting the public agenda and is a vital resource and sparring partner for me and my colleagues as policy makers.

So what is the way forward?

We need to strengthen the focus on non-communicable disease in the agenda of the international community.

We need to empower all nations and all health systems in their fight against non-communicable diseases, including their treatment and their prevention.

We need to focus both on the devastating effects of the non-communicable diseases, but also on their main causes: alcohol, tobacco, unhealthy diet and physical inactivity in our populations.

We must also take into consideration the causes of the causes: the distribution of wealth, resources and living conditions between and within regions.

I believe we can take important steps towards such achievements during this consultation. I wish us all good luck!