Dear representatives of civil society, affected communities and parliaments from the countries of the EECA region! We ask you to support the Regional Statement from CSOs and affected communities, which reflects the agreements reached on May 16-18, 2023 regarding further joint actions in the region aimed at eliminating tuberculosis. – @ TB Europe Coalition
Dushanbe Statement: Eastern Europe and Central Asia TB Summit 16 – 18 May
- We, participants of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) TB Summit met in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, on 16-18 May 2023, brought together by our convening partners – Global TB Caucus, US Agency for International Development (USAID), PAS Center and Stop TB Partnership – and representatives of TB stakeholders from EECA region who share the same views as the Summit participants, we are signing this Statement developed with the support of members of TB affected community and civil society organizations lead by convening partners and TBpeople, TB Europe Coalition, TBpeopleUkraine, Moldova Society Against Tuberculosis, hereinafter referred to as Dushanbe Statement, as a reflection of our shared commitment to our common goal to end TB by 2030.
- We thank the Government, institutions and people of Tajikistan for their hospitality in hosting our first joint multi-sectoral face-to-face Summit since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and express our hope that regional TB cooperation in EECA will continue to strengthen.
- We recognise that TB continues to be one of the world’s and region’s deadliest and most discriminating infectious diseases and the leading killer of people with HIV. We further recognise that the EECA region is home to nine of the world’s 30 countries with the highest-burden of multidrug resistant TB (MDR-TB). We remember all those who have died because of TB, express our profound sympathy to all who have lost loved ones because of TB, pay tribute to all health care professionals, especially frontline health and social workers for the essential care and services they provide, and express our solidarity with all people with and affected by TB.
- We acknowledge that TB stigma is a significant barrier to TB services, and call for TB responses to enhance focus on identifying, measuring and analyzing stigma-related barriers, and envisage adequate funding for the interventions, which can mitigate and overcome such barriers.
- We affirm that comprehensive government, multistakeholder and cross-border cooperation is essential in delivering quality and continuous complex activities for TB prevention, screening and care, scaling up equitable access to newer all-oral shorter-duration treatment TB regimens as well as to ideal fixed dose combinations including its pediatric formulations alongside with organizing national awareness raising campaigns on this; recognition and respect of rights, and the removal of legal, social and cultural barriers to health and supportive people-centered services, oriented to the needs of mobile, migrant and other socio-vulnerable populations. This is especially important in the EECA region given the large number of people displaced by the war in Ukraine and other armed conflicts in the region.
- We underline the importance of the second UN High Level Meeting on TB on 22 September 2023, alongside the UN High Level Meetings on Universal Health Coverage and Pandemic Preparedness & Response, and affirm that these meetings provide an unprecedented opportunity to centralise TB on the global health agenda.
- In support of the best possible outcomes from the UNHLM, and acknowledging the drafting of the 2023 UN High Level Meeting Political Declaration, we make the following commitments:
- To call on Heads of State and / or Heads of Government to attend the UNHLM and commit to the highest levels of commitment and action.
- To advocate for the six UNHLM Key Asks from TB Stakeholders, the six Calls to Action from the Accountability Report of TB-affected Communities and Civil Society: Priorities to Close the Deadly Divide and the Joint Statement: WHO Director-General and the Civil Society Taskforce on TB to be incorporated in a comprehensive and ambitious 2023 UN TB Political Declaration.
- To emphasize the importance of ambitious, numerical, timebound targets for reaching, diagnosing, treating and providing quality care for people with TB and DR TB, children with TB, and also scale-up of the preventive TB measures, including TPT for all people who need it.
- To support the closure of the TB funding gap, and for the inclusion of clear investment targets in the Political Declaration, reaching US$22 billion annually by 2026 and US$35 billion annually by 2030 globally. And to further support the need for innovative financing mechanisms to increase domestic financing, and the scaling up of support for the Global Fund, Stop TB Partnership, Unitaid and other donors.
- To continue to emphasise the importance of investment in research and development, and the acceleration and rollout of innovative TB tools, including new diagnostic technologies and a new TB vaccine which is operational and accessible to all people who need it by 2025.
- To advance an equitable, inclusive, gender-sensitive, rights-based and people-centred TB response, commit to strengthening community-led monitoring, and champion engagement with Civil Society and those affected by TB.
- We affirm that the success of the UNHLM will be determined not only by the range of targets agreed and commitments made, but by the swift and attainment of targets and full implementation of those commitments. As such, we commit to take action in our countries, including advocacy for the rapid adoption of WHO guidelines, increased financing, policy improvements, and implementation of global commitments.
- We emphasize the importance of scaling up adaptation and use of multi-sectoral accountability framework for TB (MAF-TB) across the region, including establishing and/or formalization of national multisectoral bodies for better coordination, collaboration, and accountability; defining roles and responsibilities of relevant sectors and stakeholders; mechanisms of monitoring and reporting of multisectoral TB response.
- We emphasize the importance of joint responsibility and systematic reporting, the value of fully transitioning to real time TB data reporting, and the need for development of independent monitoring and review mechanisms with active engagement of and contribution from TB affected communities, civil society, media and other stakeholders.
- We underline the vital role of parliamentarians in ensuring accountability, and call on Parliamentary Health Committees and other appropriate national accountability mechanisms to ensure that inquiries, hearings and / or debates are held on TB in each Parliament at least once per year.
- We express our gratitude to the convening partners, reiterate our support for their mandates and their work, and commit to further deepening our partnership in the fight to end TB.
- We reaffirm our shared commitment to end TB by 2030 guided by the Global Plan to End TB, 2023-2030, Tuberculosis action plan for the WHO European Region 2023–2030, Global Fund Strategy 2023-2028 with a unified approach which transcends political and geographic boundaries, we commit to implement the 2023 UNHLM Advocacy Roadmap developed during the TB Summit.
- This Dushanbe Statement is made in English and Russian, and both languages shall have equal validity.
@ TB Europe Coalition