People living with NCDs are powerful agents of change, capable of leveraging their lived experience to reach others and help break down stigma and discrimination. The views and perspectives of people living with NCDs are essential to inform laws, policies, healthcare services and other systemic NCD decisions. Learning from the lived experience and first-hand knowledge of NCDs is essential to improving policies, services, programmes and social beliefs. Meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs stands to make the NCD response more urgent, more accountable, more robust and effective.
Our Views, Our Voices is an initiative of the NCD Alliance and people living with NCDs, which seeks to put people first in the NCD response, and break down stigma and discrimination, enabling people living with NCDs to be leaders and active players in the response to these diseases and in growing the NCD movement. People living with NCDs are the ultimate owners of this initiative, they inspire it and drive it. The initiative is guided by the Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs built in 2017 with the generous input of nearly 2000 people living with NCDs who took part in Our Views, Our Voices consultation efforts. The Advocacy Agenda serves as a compass for action for the NCD community. It has four pillars: prevention, treatment, care and support, social justice and meaningful involvement.
The Our Views, Our Voices initiative promotes the meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs in the NCD response. Its objectives are to:
- Promote consultation of people living with NCDs to build a knowledge base of their common challenges, needs and priorities
- Advocate to put people first in the NCD response at the global, regional and national levels by promoting meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs in decision making and furthering the Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs
- Equip people living with NCDs with skills, knowledge, and confidence to build a public narrative and drive change
- Promote the views and voices of people living with NCDs and strengthen a public narrative that puts people first, challenges NCD misconceptions, breaks down stigma and discrimination, and calls for systemic change
In 2021, NCD Alliance launched the Global Charter on Meaningful Involvement of People Living with NCDs by consultation, which calls for formal mechanisms of involvement in organisational practices across different sectors, with internal resources, capacities, and an enabling environment to sustain it and multiply its impact.
The Our Views, Our Voices Global Advisory Committee
The Our Views, Our Voices initiative is guided by a Global Advisory Committee comprising of advocates and experts with lived experiences representing a wide range of NCD conditions, (including care partner experience) across various geographies. The advisory committee guides the initiative’s overall strategy to achieve the objectives of the initiative, promoting the initiative and its objectives at various advocacy opportunities.
Global Advisory Committee Members
The advisory committee is composed of a total of 13 members. The upcoming tenure (January 2026 - May 2027) will be composed of a combination of experienced advisory committee members (retained from the previous tenure to offer continuity to guide ongoing activities) and 4 new competitively selected members who are individuals with lived experiences of NCDs familiar with the Our Views, Our Voices initiative and able to demonstrate civil society leadership, advocacy experience and a collaborative spirit.
Advisory Committee Member Responsibilities
- Advise the initiative’s overall strategy and priorities, including identifying opportunities for lived experience participation in the work of the NCD Alliance and co-creating strategies reflecting the emerging needs of people living with NCDs.
- Advise ways to further operationalise the meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs across NCD Alliance and share best practices, as appropriate.
- Represent the Advisory Committee and promote the Our Views, Our Voices initiative and its objectives in communications and in-person opportunities, as appropriate.
- Promote advocacy efforts and open opportunities related to the Our Views, Our Voices initiative, amongst committee members’ own networks of people living with NCDs.
- Provide strategic advice and input on the initiative’s offerings and resources for the lived experience community, such as the public narrative training and the initiative’s broader training strategy, the NCD Diaries, the Map of Involvement, the Fellowship and where appropriate, resources being developed by other teams at NCD Alliance.
- Contribute to the identification and/or selection of participants for various Our Views, Our Voices offerings, as appropriate.
- Advise and input on the development of Our Views, Our Voices resources, including the conceptualisation, planning, consultation and review of qualitative and quantitative data for publications.
- Contribute to global advocacy opportunities and campaigns to ensure reflection of lived experience priorities, as appropriate, e.g. World Health Assembly, High-Level Meetings, regional convenings, Global Week for Action and more.
- Contribute lived experience insights to the NCD Alliance strategic planning process in 2026 through engagement at relevant points.
- Members who are active in country level advocacy and engaged with their national alliance, will be included in NCDA communications with their government. For members who are active in-country but where there isn't an active alliance, NCDA will coordinate with the members' engagement efforts with their government and will provide updates on any developments.
- Inform and advise on furthering the Advocacy Agenda of People Living with NCDs in global, regional, and national contexts and implementing the strategy for the Global Charter on Meaningful Involvement of People Living with NCDs.
Tenure
January 2026 – May 2027
Time Commitment
- The Our Views, Our Voices Global Advisory Committee will be convened virtually for at least 4-6 calls per year.
- Email communication for comments/feedback as necessary.
- Additional voluntary participation in the competitive selection process for the NCD Diaries, Our Views Our Voices public narrative training, and Fellowship.
- Online engagement leading up to and during the Global Week for Action on NCDs and other global campaigns.
- Attendance in global/virtual events organised and/or facilitated by NCD Alliance as necessary.
- Optional participation in Advisory Groups to guide the development of NCDA publications; time commitment will depend on the publication and will be an additional commitment.
- In case a Global Advisory Committee member is unable to join 3 consecutive calls (or provide input on call discussions via email in lieu), a reconfirmation of their interest and commitment to the Global Advisory Committee will be required to maintain their active membership.
- Appointed committee members can serve for a maximum of two terms.
Eligibility
We invite expressions of interest from people living with NCDs who are affiliated with an NCD Alliance member (full or associate member) for the competitive selection process to become a committee member. To ensure a geographically balanced Committee we invite expressions of interest from EMRO, PAHO and WPRO countries specifically.
Competitive selection Process:
Expressions of interest will be competitively evaluated by former members of the Our Views, Our Voices Global Advisory Committee and the NCD Alliance, against the equally weighted selection criteria outlined below. In addition, final selection will look to ensure the Committee’s balanced representation across NCD conditions and care partner experience, age, gender, and geographies.
All individuals who express interest in a role on the Our Views, Our Voices Global Advisory Committee will be contacted directly regarding the outcome of the process.
Equally weighted selection criteria
- NCD Advocacy experience: experience of advocating on NCD issues; promoting meaningful involvement of people living with NCDs; which might include, speaking in public and/or facilitating or organising an advocacy activity either independently or through a NCDA member organization (full or associate member).
- Leveraging lived experience: utilizing lived experiences in an advocacy role; promoting the value of lived experiences; and any involvement with the Our Views, Our Voices initiative.
- Leadership: leadership examples, civil society experience, track record of mobilising and leading networks of people living with NCDs.
- Collaborative approach: experience of working as part of a group, motivated approach to contribute to activities relevant to the NCD Community
Process for expressing interest in this role
If you are interested in pursuing this opportunity, please use this form to submit your expression of interest by 7 January, 2025.
Access & Support
A connectivity payment will be provided for Advisory Committee meetings attended, and out-of-pocket expenses can be reimbursed on submission of receipts in line with the Policy on Meaningful Involvement. Out-of-pocket expenses eligible for coverage encompass, but aren't restricted to, travel, accommodation, digital connectivity, subsistence, necessary childcare, carer support and translator or interpreter costs.
Please note that Advisory Committee members are eligible for an acknowledgment payment (for Committee meeting contributions) if they do not have a job or paid salary. This is in line with the NCD Alliance Policy on Meaningful Involvement which states that those ‘who do not participate as part of their paid employment will be remunerated for their time through an acknowledgement payment’.
