Port of Spain Summit Declaration as a successful outcome of global health diplomacy in the Caribbean region: a systematic review

Information sources and search strategy

The following keywords were used to search: Non-Communicable Diseases, Global Health Diplomacy, and Health Security, and the results were filtered by searching “Port of Spain Summit Declaration.” The following major databases were searched: MEDLINE, PubMed, EMBASE, Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCO and Global Health database. All articles available from 1950 to 2019 were extracted and review of policy documents related to GHD, NCDs was done. To fulfil the study objectives, a detailed review of policy documents, published research on NCDs in Caribbean region, Summit declarations, CARICOM meetings, Caribbean regional conferences of PAHO/WHO, Inter-American Development Bank were considered for this review. Databases were further screened for articles on “Port of Spain Summit Declaration,” “Global Health Diplomacy and Caribbean” and “Non-communicable diseases and Health policies in the Caribbean.” The important websites of CARICOM secretariat, Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA), Pan American Health Organization (PAHO)/WHO, Government of Trinidad and Tobago and Institute of International Relations at University of the West Indies were searched to gather additional information on the topic of interest and were scrutinized for the required keywords and content.

Inclusion and exclusion criteria

We included all the research articles published in the English language from 1910 till December 2018 as retrieved by the databases. Only articles in English language and with full texts were included in the study. The exclusion criteria for our study were the following: abstracts, articles other than English language, duplicates, articles covering other geographical regions other than the Caribbean region and articles without explicit methodology or results

Study selection and data extraction

Two authors (VC and AK) independently assessed the study eligibility by reviewing the titles of all potential citations. Discrepancies were resolved by consensus between the reviewers. Full texts of all the relevant articles were assessed, and the data were extracted from each eligible study on the location of the study, author’s name and the presence and discussion of the keywords of interest. The articles on NCDs, health diplomacy, and health security, giving more relevant details about the Caribbean region were chosen.

Response of CARICOM

The first International Conference on Health Promotion took place in 1986, The Ottawa Charter for Health Promotion pledged to advocate a clear commitment to health, counteract unhealthy living conditions, to focus on public health issues and to reorient health services towards promotion of health.⁵ The charter also emphasized to recognize health and its maintenance as a social investment and challenge which was taken into serious consideration by the Caribbean region to implement in the region. Though the NCDs emerged as a major economic and human burden in many low-middle income countries and often neglected by the governments with a persistent myth that NCDs are the problem of developed nations, the region was determined to curb the rising epidemic. The Caribbean region has a great history of success for being the first region in eliminating indigenous polio, measles, rubella, and its response to HIV/AIDS.^6,7 The region is a pioneer in developing policies for the prevention and control of NCDs as it showed its united voice and commitment in 2001 during Nassau conference. It also established Caribbean Commission on Health and Development “to propel health to the center of the development agenda” chaired by George Alleyene, the former director of PAHO/ WHO and former Chancellor of the University of the West Indies. During 2005-2006, the report of Caribbean Commission on Health and Development was helpful in advocacy activities to prioritize the NCDs and also for a regional summit of CARICOM Heads of Government on Chronic NCDs in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in September 2007 with the support from CARICOM, PAHO/WHO, Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC). The successful GHD has led to the formulation of the 15- point multisectoral Port of Spain Summit Declaration “Uniting to Stop the Epidemic of Chronic NCDs.” Moreover this summit was backed by PAHO/WHO to provide the technical support for Surveillance, mobilizing other partners and resources, developing NCD plan and implementation.⁸ This summit was the first in the world where the Heads of Government focused on prevention and control of NCDs with a clear road map for policy implementation, intersectoral collaboration, and a collective action. The summit involved diverse actors from international organizations, the private sector, civil societies, and supporting governments.

Global Health Diplomacy and evolution of the “Port of Spain Summit Declaration”

Early in 1986, the Caribbean Cooperation in Health Initiative was approved by the health ministers and made NCDs a priority to focus.⁹ This collaboration continued in the region since then with regular regional meets until it resulted in the formulation of the broader Caribbean centric policy for prevention and control of NCDs. GHD intersects the areas of health, foreign policy, and trade. Because of the rising threat of NCDs in the region, there is a great need and demand for GHD as the ministries of health or head of the states need to work to promote the health of their citizens along with the global community. Moreover, because of the growing burden of NCDs in the region, the regular meetings between foreign ministers and health ministers have become more common and frequent to address the critical aspects of population health.¹⁰ Health domain has taken a special position in the international relations, and health is used for soft power, developing security policies, trade agreements since it touches the issues of national development and economic interests. A summary of NCDs specific landmark events in the Caribbean region, as shown below (Table 1).

Impact of “Port of Spain Summit Declaration” at regional level

Trinidad and Tobago have passed robust tobacco legislation, which became the model for the region if they chose to. As a result of this declaration, PAHO/WHO has developed an NCD surveillance (a model web-based reporting) with the support from Inter-American Development Bank. The summit also resulted in the establishment of a Healthy Caribbean Coalition which is a 30-member civil society alliance as a direct response to the NCD summit declaration.⁷ As the countries started implementing this regional declaration, the progress is monitored and tracked using a reporting grid that is submitted annually. Smaller countries have appointed one officer assigned to NCDs with other portfolios whereas larger countries have set up NCD department. It was found that due to the regional/global support for addressing the capacity as part of the declaration, programs such as Caribbean Wellness day, Framework Convention on Tobacco Control ratification, Global School Health, Global Youth Tobacco and STEPS NCD risk factor surveys have been implemented in all countries irrespective of size and capacity.¹¹ Barbados has also inaugurated an ‘Inter-Ministerial Task Force on NCDs’ chaired by the Minister of Health and tasked to oversee the ‘whole of government’ response to NCDs.¹² The Caribbean with its cultural diversity and high burden of NCDs provides an ideal environment within which to undertake further studies to better understand the interactions between culture and health policy formation.¹³

CARICOM summit as a precursor of UN high-level meeting on NCDs at global level

The legacy and journey of this regional summit to the global level is shown below (Table 2). This summit declaration is a very good example of a successful summit as the follow up took place within a month of the summit and repeatedly afterwards with various stakeholders.¹¹ In 1997, to prepare a regional strategy and plan of action numerous consultations with 35 countries and academic institutions were done to form the CARMEN (Collaborative Action for Risk Factor Prevention and Effective Management of NCD Network), for the integrated prevention and control of chronic diseases in the Americas and to ensure ownership by these countries.¹⁴

The initiative to produce POSD had begun with three members of the Caribbean Commission on Health and Development, some of whom sought a CARICOM summit as a pathway to reach the United Nations.¹⁵ Essential financial support came from outside the Caribbean region, specifically from Canada. The 2007 POSS planners focused the agenda on prevention, leading to CARICOM commitments on physical activity, nutrition, healthy diets, smoking reduction, preventive treatment and education, surveillance, monitoring, and evaluation.¹⁶ In October 2005, a reorganization of the structure of the PAHO/WHO was implemented in the Caribbean region by forming a new PAHO Office of Caribbean Program Coordination (OCPC) which is the coordinating entity for technical cooperation strategies at the Caribbean regional level. The OCPC is the assigned PAHO/WHO technical cooperation entity for the Caribbean Cooperation in Health, the blueprint for the strategic health agenda for the CARICOM region.¹⁷ In 2011, Kirton et al, from the Global Health Diplomacy program at the University of Toronto had put forward ten measures even before the UN summit to help to ensure a grand success. They include Multi-stakeholder Engagement; Development, Economic and Broader Health Links; Leader Involvement; Leadership Roles; Outcome Document; Implementation; Supporting Summits and HLMs; Funding; Accountability; Follow-up of UN HLM on NCDs.¹⁸ The NCDs impact as a development challenge was highlighted by Knight et al, in their report “Keeping NCDs as a Political Priority in the Caribbean: A Political Economy Analysis of Non-Communicable Disease Policy-making.” The report underscored that the NCDs negatively affect economies, health systems, households, and individuals through a range of drivers such as reduced labor productivity, higher medical treatment costs, absenteeism, and lost savings. These drivers aggregate into significant socioeconomic negative impacts, including in the areas of country productivity, competitiveness and fiscal pressures; ultimately undermining sustainable development goals.¹⁹

The advocacy by Sir George Alleyne at different global platforms²⁰ and others resulted in first in the world Heads of Government NCDs Summit. This Summit Declaration served not only as a rallying point to accelerate the regional NCDs response, but also as a catalyst for the first United Nations high-level meeting on NCDs in September 2011.²¹ Kirton et al have stated that the CARICOM members had global first mover advantage in pioneering the world’s first summit on NCDs at Port of Spain in 2007.²² As highlighted in the Inter-American Development Bank report by Milano, the Caribbean seeks to create a common language and to share information, promote constructive dialogue, improve consultations, collaborations and partnerships among Governments, Private Sector and Civil Society.²³ For the first time in the world, all the heads of government exclusively focused on NCDs resulting in multiple collective, multilateral commitments for the implementation of policies and actions about NCD control. It has sparked the interest in the global summit and was elevated to a global level and resulted in UN-High-Level Meeting on NCDs for the prevention and control of non-communicable diseases declared by the UN in September, 2011.²⁴ Therefore GHD is now conducted in multilateral contexts as a method of reaching compromise and consensus in matters related to health so that new agreements promoting values and principles in the face of health threats (e.g NCDs) are adopted. the practitioners and professionals of both global health and foreign policy should work together with better understanding and coordination in order to improve global health security.²⁵ Therefore GHD has the great potential to promote peace and security thus a complete understanding of the reasons for this, and the scope for furthering this perspective, remains a priority.²⁶