The Western Pacific Region is the most diverse WHO region, with 37 countries and areas spanning a third of the distance around the globe. Wealthier countries in the Region often have the resources and expertise to tackle persistent health threats, such as cancer and other noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). But countries with resource constraints and limited expertise need knowledge and support from fellow Member States and WHO.
In an effort to meet this need, WHO has joined forces with Member States and partners, including WHO collaborating centres, to develop training courses and build capacity. In 2005, the WHO Regional Office for the Western Pacific began work with Japan’s National Institute of Public Health, which is a WHO collaborating centre, on an initiative to offer training in Japan for NCD programme managers from around the Region.
As the need for training and capacity-building in the Region increased, the National Institute of Public Health and WHO launched the Regional Workshop on Strengthening Leadership and Advocacy for the Prevention and Control of NCDs, also known as LeAd-NCD. The workshop has helped equip participants with the skills and capacity to champion NCD prevention and control in their home countries. LeAd-NCD workshops have been held annually since 2013 with themes such as NCD prevention and control, global coordination mechanisms for NCDs, worker health, childhood obesity, and physical activity.
“The LeAd-NCD workshop provided me with a comprehensive view of NCD prevention and control so that I could begin to look at NCDs in the right way,” says Dr Nguyen Thi Thi Tho, head of the Division for Noncommunicable Disease Control Prevention, National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology of Viet Nam.
In 2013, WHO also collaborated with the Republic of Korea’s National Cancer Center, a WHO collaborating centre, to develop a workshop for leadership and capacity-building for cancer control. Known as CanLEAD, the workshop is aligned with a series of six modules WHO developed for comprehensive cancer prevention and control programmes. A second CanLEAD workshop was conducted in 2014, and the initiative was expanded with workshops in 2016 and 2017 that drew participants from other WHO regions. The National Cancer Center also worked with the Regional Office and WHO headquarters to develop an online course, eCanLEAD, based on the six cancer control modules.
In addition to providing advanced training for NCD professionals, the workshops have fostered dialogue on the strengthening of regional and global NCD policies.