2021 UICC Annual Report
Driving engagement through Virtual Dialogues In 2021, UICC’s Virtual Dialogues—virtual “meetings” designed for the continued exchange of information on cancer priorities while in-person interactions remained severely disrupted—further expanded their reach with the aim of providing opportunities for UICC members to remain connected and informed despite the pandemic. Twice as many people joined the Dialogues compared to 2020. The Dialogues reflected the importance of bringing attention back to urgent areas of cancer control, including cervical cancer elimination, tobacco control, cancer in older adults and the threat of antimicrobial resistance.
“These virtual meetings are great and urgently needed to improve the way we do things, especially in addressing cervical cancer as a health problem.” Senior Scientist, South African Medical Research Council, Virtual Dialogue series participant
Spotlight on the Virtual Dialogue series on Cervical Cancer Elimination UICC, in partnership with WHO and Jhpiego, launched a series of Virtual Dialogues aimed at supporting and galvanising progress towards the implementation of the WHO’s global commitments on cervical cancer at the national level. The series offered an important platform to discuss the key obstacles and enablers to meeting the 90:70:90 global targets, from the importance of integrated approaches for the scale-up of screening and treatment services to the palliative care needs for women with cervical cancer. Over 700 participants from across government, civil society, health professions, patient advocacy and international organisations have engaged in the series to date, with recordings of the discussions available on demand via the UICC website. 18
