A recent WHO assessment of Rwanda's capacity to address non-communicable diseases (NCDs) found that country failed on every measure.

How well is the private sector doing in tackling the rising pandemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which cause nearly two out of every three deaths in the world?

Both young and old suffer from NCDs in developing countries. The farther down on the socioeconomic scale one goes, however, the higher the impact on younger populations.

We must seize this unprecedented global movement to improve policy and services on the ground for the most vulnerable women and children. Because when you take care of women, women take care of their children and indeed the whole world.

In the developing world, this inequity is something that we face every day -- the tragedy of cancer typified by a little girl with a disease with a 90 percent chance of a cure who looks at us with big brown eyes, full of unspeakable pain, to ask, "Will you treat me?"

Despite this progress, much more remains to be done, and it needs to be done urgently. Not only do NCDs account for 36 million deaths a year, their impact is in all countries and is on the rise.

Effectively knocking out non-communicable diseases and the chronic infections that cause many of them will require a comprehensive effort, and immunization belongs at the very heart of such an approach.

You may not have heard of them grouped this way, but NCDs are diseases like cancer, diabetes, respiratory and cardiovascular illness. They are the kind of sick that... wait for it... causes two out of every three deaths worldwide.

By not agreeing to final language about what the world should do to tackle NCDs, our public leaders broke our trust.

Women are powerful. Women are central figures in every family, affecting the health -- and future -- of children everywhere. Women also shape world ...