Strengthening United Nations country support on non-communicable diseases and mental health: an analysis of United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks

TL;DR

This paper analyzes how non-communicable diseases and mental health are addressed in United Nations development plans, finding progress but also significant gaps in specific actions and accountability.

Contribution

The study provides a novel analysis of NCD and mental health integration in UNSDCFs, identifying regional disparities and the lack of specific indicators.

Findings

69% of UNSDCFs from 2020–2024 include NCDs, up from 34% in 2012–2015.

75% of recent UNSDCFs include mental health, but many lack specific indicators or outputs.

NCD risk factors are generally absent in the frameworks, and regional integration varies.

Abstract

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health conditions are among the major development challenges of the 21st century. Their impact across the 2030 Agenda calls for a coordinated United Nations (UN) response. UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Frameworks (UNSDCFs) facilitate UN joint action by serving as strategic planning tools co-designed by the UN country team and government. This paper describes how NCDs and mental health are included in these frameworks by reviewing UNSDCF documents using a key term search and categorising the extracted content by intervention area. The results show that compared to the 2012–2015 period, when 34% of UNSDCFs included NCDs, there has been progress in their prioritisation. Of the 114 UNSDCFs launched between 2020 and 2024, 69% included NCDs and 75% included mental health. The lowest levels of NCD integration were found in the World Health Organization African, Eastern Mediterranean, and Americas regions, while the African and Western Pacific regions had the lowest levels including mental health. UNSDCFs referencing NCDs and mental health often did so broadly and were missing specific indicators and outputs, leading to reduced clarity of what is expected by the UN system and weaker accountability. NCD risk factors were found to be generally absent in UNSDCFs. These findings highlight the growing recognition of NCDs and mental health on the development agenda, yet their integration in UNSDCFs is often inadequate and requires a more synergistic and targeted approach that can be translated into whole-of-UN system action at country level.

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