In yet another call for proposals under the “Good Health for All” theme, the European Commission (EC) is requesting Concept Notes for “supporting prevention and control of non-communicable diseases in developing countries.” NGOs, which are mostly involved in addressing communicable diseases, should not ignore this opportunity because EC has acknowledged that the poor share a major burden of non-communicable diseases arising out of extreme tobacco use, drug abuse, alcohol consumption, unhealthy diets, indoor pollution due to use of charcoal and firewood ( a symbolic representation of poverty), mental illness and even accidents and injuries. The EC has specially directed this funding to developing countries which indicates that despite non-communicable diseases spreading due to changing lifestyles and behavior, they still affect the poor and the vulnerable populations to a large extent. Civil society organizations need to begin interventions in this regard by researching on the related issues and impact, raising public awareness and advocate for policy changes.
The objective of this programme is to “to contribute to reducing ill health in developing countries caused by non-communicable and lifestyle-related diseases such as cancer, cardio-vascular disease, lung disease, diabetes, injury and mental illness.” Project approaches can include building the local capacities of the organizations, communities and the public agencies in developing action plans to tackle such diseases and/or organizing operational research “to the development of efficient, applicable and comprehensive health promotion activities which target the main health risk factors in a community, such as tobacco, alcohol and drugs abuse, unhealthy diet, indoor pollution and physical inactivity, but also accidents, injuries and mental illness.” Activities that can be proposed are operational research; data collection (baseline studies, surveys, etc); capacity building and policy advocacy; action supporting the design, implementation and monitoring of country policy on non-communicable diseases; small-scale piloting or demonstrating of innovative health promotion actions; training; the design and production of campaign material; public campaigns; south-south and north-south cooperation; or public-private partnerships.”
Funding allocations for each project are between €300,000 and €1,000,000. As usual, applicants can seek only 80% of the core funding while the rest to be covered from other sources, but for international organizations this has been limited to only 50%. Projects can be proposed for a period of not less than one year and not more than three years. All applicants should have PADOR registration. The submission deadline is 20 January 2010. For more information, download the documents at this link.
