No country is immune to the impacts of the obesity pandemic, which now affects over 1 billion people – including 160 million children and adolescents – across the world. Without urgent action, the global costs of overweight and obesity are predicted to reach a staggering US$ 3 trillion per year by 2030.
Today, the United Nations Inter-Agency Task Force on Noncommunicable Diseases in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a call for nominations for the 2025 Awards. This year, awards will recognise the effort of governments and their partners to prevent and control obesity, one of the world’s most pressing public health challenges.
Tackling obesity underscores the commitment by the Task Force to promote cross-sector action to combat the noncommunicable diseases (NCD)-related Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets. Tackling obesity will be central to Member State discussions as they prepare for the Fourth High-level Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on NCDs in New York this September. Award winners will be announced during the United Nations General Assembly high-level week.
Launched in 2018, the prestigious Task Force Awards recognise excellence in multisectoral action to combat to advance the NCD-related SDGs. Last year the focus was on assistive technology, in 2023 it was on digital health, and in 2022, it was on primary health care. Previous award winners are available here.
Details on how to nominate an organization for an award are available here.
Contact: Alexey Kulikov (kulikova@who.int)