Attended by almost 200 people this HCC webinar, “Taking Stock: Wins, Gaps, and the Road Ahead for Healthy Food Policy in the Caribbean” hosted in collaboration with PAHO, CARPHA, and the OECS Commission provided a timely opportunity to highlight policy progress, share lessons learned, and strengthen collective efforts toward regional NCD prevention and control.

The objectives of the webinar were to:

1. Examine progress and key challenges in the implementation of fiscal policies including sweetened beverage (SB) taxes and subsidies across the Caribbean 
2. Identify lessons learned from school nutrition policy development and implementation, including navigating engagement with the private sector (with an emphasis on health neutral/health promoting companies) 
3. Highlight challenges, progress and opportunities in other key food policy areas including: TFA regulation; FOPWL, marketing of breast milk substitutes and marketing to children. 
4. Reflect on approaches and tools to address the cross cutting challenge of undue influence and conflict of interest in food policy implementation 
5. Explore actionable recommendations to accelerate policy progress, including the application of innovative research approaches and findings

View/download the flyer with details of participants here.

This is official WHA79 side event will be moderated by the President of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, Senator Dr. Kenneth Connell. The side event  has been organised by the Government of Barbados, NCD Alliance, and United for Global Mental Health with the Government of the Philippines, UNDP, the UN Inter-Agency Task Force on NCDs and Healthy Caribbean Coalition.

We are thrilled to invite youth advocates in your organization to participate in a Caribbean Youth Voices: Healthy Caribbean Futures Advocacy Training. A virtual 3-part training hosted by the Healthy Caribbean Coalition with support from the Commonwealth Foundation. The training ultimately seeks to strengthen the capacity of youth and young persons living with NCDs to effectively participate in NCD/health-related decision-making processes.

Training Details

• Saturday May 9th 2026 - 10:00AM - 12:00PM AST
• Saturday May 16th 2026 - 10:00AM - 12:00PM AST
• Saturday May 23rd 2026 - 10:00AM - 12:00PM AST

*The training has a limited capacity and youth must be available to attend all 3 trainings to participate. 

Training Objectives

• Explore what NCDs look like in the Caribbean and why they matter to young people
• Strengthen Capacity: Build your skills to engage meaningfully in health and policy decision-making
• Use the “Our Views, Our Voices (OVOV)” to explore why telling your story is important to support change and guide your advocacy
• Get introduced to new guidelines designed to help you understand what meaningful engagement means to support your advocacy
• Move from just learning about advocacy to identifying concrete advocacy steps you can take.

Image: Barbados Today

Join the launch of the following Young Caribbean Minds (YCM) Resources:

✅ The YCM Curriculum -- a school and community organisations resource on Mental Health, Child Protection, and Violence Prevention
✅ The YCM Workbook Volume 3 -- a hands-on child/youth resource covering Mental Health, Child Protection, and Violence Prevention
✅ The YCM Network -- a powerful group of children and youth taking action across the Caribbean

WHY ATTEND?

🎁 Download free YCM resources exclusively for registered attendee .

⁠🌐 Connect with a regional network of child protection professionals, educators, and youth advocates⁠

💡 Be the first to access tools and frameworks you can use immediately in your work, classroom, or community

This event is for everyone -- parents, caregivers, children, youth, teachers, guidance counsellors, child protection workers and anyone who supports children and youth. If you care about young people, this is for you.

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Lake Health and Wellbeing: We were delighted to welcome a diverse group of participants from across the region to our recent webinar, Innovative Strategies for Promoting Physical Activity in Young People in the Caribbean, a partnership with the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, CARPHA and PAHO. The session brought together a diversity of sectors to explore practical and forward-thinking approaches to increasing physical activity among young people.

Related: 

Lake Health and Wellbeing: From Awareness to Action: Making Youth Physical Activity a Priority in the Caribbean

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Sagicor: Hosted by Dr. Kenneth Connell, President of the HCC and Deputy Dean of Recruitment and Outreach at the UWI Faculty of Medicine, The Wellness Effect is a video podcast series designed to educate our communities about the dangers of NCDs. It will show the impact on not just their physical but their financial wellbeing. The series is a partnership between Sagicor, the Healthy Caribbean Coalition and the UWI Faculty of Medicine.

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CARPHA: On Tuesday, 14th April, CARPHA, in collaboration with PAHO, hosted a regional webinar entitled: “Guiding National Nutrition Policies and Guidelines in Caribbean Schools and Early Childhood Services: Launch of Technical Recommendations for the Development of Nutrition Standards for Caribbean Schools.”

CANDI: The leadership of the Caribbean Association of Nutritionists and Dietitians (CANDi) is pleased to launch Caribbean Nutrition Month (CNM) 2026. This month-long regional initiative will be launched on Caribbean Nutrition Day, June 1, 2026, at 10:00 a.m. (JT) at the University of Technology, Jamaica (Lecture Theatre 50). Partners are invited to participate via hybrid modalities; details for virtual participation will be shared shortly. CANDi will also celebrate its 54th anniversary on June 26, 2026, making this year’s observance especially significant. CNM campaigns, guided by the Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) framework, feature an annual theme that promotes healthier dietary patterns and active living across Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS).

EarthMedic and EarthNurse are not-for-profits with global scope, with special focus on climate-vulnerable regions, anchored in the Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS), and based in Trinidad and Tobago and England, UK.

• UPDATED: Plan your schedule ahead with our WHA79 calendar
• WEBINAR: The Pulse of Tomorrow: Shifting the Paradigm for NCDs in Global Health Architecture
• In conversation: where lived experience meets policy
• Advocating for integrated HIV, NCD, and mental health responses: A toolkit for the 2026 UN High-Level Meeting on HIV/AIDS
• NCDA Submission on WHO Consultation on Global Health Architecture – Round 2

Caribbean Civil Society – Health Systems Strengthening Meeting 2014

On Wednesday October 22, 2014, a Caribbean Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) Meeting hosted by the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC) in partnership with PAHO/WHO and CARPHA took place in Dominica. The meeting was supported by the NCD Alliance and generously made possible by a grant from Medtronic Philanthropy, and was one of the outputs of the sub-grant titled “STRENGTHENING HEALTH SYSTEMS, SUPPORTING NCD ACTION” awarded to the HCC/CARICOM, Brazil and South Africa by the NCD Alliance.