Nepal Public Health Foundation organized  the Regional Civil Society Meeting on Non Communicable Diseases with the support of  South East Asia Regional Office of WHO from 10-12 January 2011 . The regional meeting bought together the experts and activists working in the field of NCDs from the 8 SEAR countries- Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Nepal, SriLanka and Thailand actively participated in the meeting.

The major objectives of the meeting were to raise awareness of burden of NCDs by assessing the situation of NCDs in different countries of the region; to discuss policy strategies on NCDs in relation  to MDGs, particulalry in the context of upcoming United Nations General Assembly meeting on NCDs in September 2011; to encourage civil socieities of participating countries to contribute to the development and implementation of national strategies in response to the rising burden of NCDs in line with SEA regional Framework ; and to advance regional collaboration and mullti-sectoral approach to deal with the rising epidemic of NCDs. The meeting highlighted the need of national,regional and global networking for NCD prevention and control and came out with ” Kathmandu Declaration on NCDs” to guide the future activities of the countries in the region, including a concerted effort for the inclusion of NCD in MDG.