The fifth in a series, the World Health Organization's 2025 Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD) Progress Monitor provides a snapshot of country progress toward meeting global NCD targets and commitments. Drawing on the latest available data, the report assesses national capacity, policy implementation, and health system responses across countries. It serves as a key accountability tool to inform action ahead of the 2025 global deadline and the 2025 UN High-Level Meeting on NCDs.

In 2015, the world committed to reducing premature mortality from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) by one-third by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG target 3.4). A decade later, progress has been uneven. While some countries have made significant strides, others face rising NCD burdens and persistent challenges. It is possible to get back on track. Evidence-based policies and interventions, such as World Health Organization’s (WHO) ‘Best buys’ for NCD prevention and control, offer cost-effective, proven solutions. Strategic investments in tobacco and alcohol control, healthier diets, physical activity promotion, diabetes and hypertension management, and HPV vaccination can save lives and deliver substantial health and economic benefits in all countries. This 2025 Progress Monitor provides an updated assessment of countries’ performance against key NCD indicators. Encouragingly, more than 100 countries have made progress on specific indicators since 2022, reflecting their commitment to action. Notable progress has been made in tobacco control and strengthening clinical guidelines for NCD management.

P.9 Each year, over 40 million people die from noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory diseases. As a group of conditions, NCDs are the leading cause of death globally and are among the leading causes of death across all income groups. (1) Underlying these NCDs are a set of modifiable behavioural risk factors like tobacco use, unhealthy diet, lack of physical activity, and the harmful use of alcohol, which in turn lead to overweight and obesity, raised blood pressure, raised cholesterol, and ultimately disease...

P.10 Member State has implemented, as appropriate according to national circumstances, the following three measures to reduce the harmful use of alcohol:

• Enact and enforce bans or comprehensive restrictions on exposure to alcohol advertising (across multiple types of media)
• Enact and enforce restrictions on the physical availability of retailed alcohol (via reduced hours of sale) Increase excise taxes on alcoholic beverages
• Increase excise taxes on alcoholic beverages

Member State has implemented the following five demand-reduction measures of the WHO FCTC at the highest level of achievement:

• Eliminate exposure to second-hand tobacco smoke in all indoor workplaces, public places and public transport
• Reduce affordability by increasing excise taxes and prices on tobacco products
• Enact and enforce comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship
• Implement plain/standardized packaging and/or large graphic health warnings on all tobacco packages
• Implement effective mass media campaigns that educate the public about the harms of smoking/tobacco use and second-hand smoke

Ireland review on these indicators is on PDF page 98