PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases
http://www.plosntds.org/
[Accessed 9 July 2016]

.
Viewpoints
What Is Next for NTDs in the Era of the Sustainable Development Goals?
James Smith, Emma Michelle Taylor
| published 07 Jul 2016 | PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0004719
…Conclusion: From Invisibility to Ubiquity
We are now firmly in the post-MDG era, but are still feeling our way into the Brave New World of the SDGs. The NTD lobby has been extraordinarily effective in building momentum and ultimately achieving recognition for NTDs within the new SDGs. This success is somewhat tempered by the sheer array of new goals, related targets, and uncertainty about how resources and commitments will map onto them.

The fight now is for traction within the emerging SDG Framework, and this requires a different focus. There is a need to shift from the limited number and international perspective of the MDGs to the much larger number of goals that need to be taken up and acted upon by a huge number of national governments. There is an opportunity here for NTDs to be leveraged throughout the SDGs; focusing on NTDs can assist nation states in grappling with the large array of new goals and targets. National governments must be—and can be—convinced of the crosscutting nature of NTD programmes and the benefits of mainstreaming NTD interventions, securing indicators and, thus, funding. There is a lot of hard work ahead, however.

There is a certain irony here that the previously “invisible” NTDs have gained prominence through their ubiquity within the SDGs, and this prominence is due in no small measure to the work of the NTD lobby thus far. Within the narrower rubric of the MDGs, the lower profile of NTDs was somewhat obscured until concerted efforts were made to underline how NTDs underpinned and interacted with the other goals and the very fabric of poverty itself. There is great value in NTDs being named in target 3.3, but there is still a challenge regarding relevance given the large number of other goals and targets, which may slice funding commitments rather more thinly than was the case with the MDGs. However, the ubiquity of NTDs in relation to the broader SDG agenda can come to the fore in relation to a greater number of goals and targets, especially those for which strong arguments can be made that NTDs may severely hamper progress: for example, goal 1 (end poverty) or goal 2 (end hunger), or where focusing on NTDs can drive progress towards specific targets, for example, 6.1 (achieve universal and equitable access to safe drinking water), 6.2 (achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all), and 3.8 (achieve UHC). From this perspective, an investment in NTDs becomes an investment in the broader sustainable development agenda [8,16].

Underlying and implicit in this is the ultimate aim of UHC. Here NTDs can act as both a focal point and a tracer indicator. Perhaps the newfound prominence and enduring ubiquity of NTDs is the mechanism to raise the prominence of the need for ubiquitous health coverage. If NTDs can become a mechanism to drive UHC, there may well be profound implications for the direction the NTD community choose to take next in their advocacy and action. There are a great many potential synergies to be built on, but also a great amount of coordination to be undertaken. Moreover, there is a risk to be managed as the NTD lobby looks to reconcile the WHO’s 2020 goals for the NTD Roadmap with the 2030 timeframe of the SDGs [18].