The World Obesity Federation is a registered charity based in England with professional member organisations in 21 EU and 5 other European countries. Although our work addresses issues beyond the European Region, in this FPA and SGA, we seek support only for our European-focused activities which are directly relevant to the Community’s 3rd Health Programme.

In this respect our general objectives are (i) to ensure overweight people in Europe receive the best available support for weight management and prevention of comorbid disease, (ii) to reduce obesity prevalence in European populations through prevention strategies, and (iii) to take due account of socio-demographic inequalities in the use of health services and in response to prevention initiatives.

To fulfil these objectives, we offer web-based training for professional obesity treatment and weight management, which will be provided by recognised experts and available to practitioners across the Community’s health services. We also provide data and policy dissemination activities for the development of obesity prevention strategies in the European region.

Our work programme 2015-2017 includes expanding our web-based training programme for health professionals and translating modules into European languages, developing a data portal for adult and child prevalence statistics in the region, and updating and extending our mapping service of European policy and community intervention activities.

These activities are relevant to the 3rd Health Programme’s specific objective 1 for cost-effective disease prevention (especially to identify, disseminate and promote evidence-based and good practices for cost-effective disease prevention and health promotion), and specific objective 3 for building health systems (especially to address shortage of resources, develop cross-border expertise and facilitate innovation in public health interventions and prevention strategies).

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The Association of European Cancer Leagues (ECL) is an NGO leading on cancer control actions at the European level since 1980. Represented by members in the EU and non-EU countries at the national level, leagues are often the main resource for the public for cancer control information and services. ECL provides a unique platform for cancer leagues to share specific know-how and experiences and is the only network in existence exclusively for cancer leagues. The running of ECL has been mainly financed by fees from its members, which cover a skeleton staff and office expenses. Prior to receiving co-funding in 2015 in the form of an Operating Grant from the EU, ECL's main source of income was membership fees, rates which have not changed for 10 years, but due to times of austerity, ECL has been unable to justify increasing the fees. ECL applied for an Operating Grant in 2014 to increase its resources in order to be able to implement actions efficiently in line with its renewed strategy 2014-2017. In 2015, the EU co-funding allowed us to increase our activities in the implementation of work for Strategic Goal 2: Promote Cancer Prevention. The grant has enabled ECL to increase our work in cancer prevention, and specifically in communicating the new 4th revision of the European Code Against Cancer in 2015, activities which included confirming translations of the Code, encouraging our members to communicate the Code, targeting young adults and incorporating the messages in all our activities including work at the European Parliament. In 2016 we will continue and expand these efforts with the Code as well as continue our normal and important activities such as tobacco control and patient support, while increasing our work at the national levels with our member leagues and other partners, which will include to a limited extent global partners during the World Cancer Congress in October 2016 in Paris.
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OBesity Training And INformation Services for Europe (OBTAINS-E) is a program of work run by the World Obesity Federation (formerly IASO-IOTF). The World Obesity Federation is a registered charity based in the UK with professional membership organisations in 21 EU and 5 other European countries. The Federation undertakes work beyond the European Region, but in this proposal it seeks support only for the European-focused activities which are directly relevant to the Community's 3rd Health Programme. The objectives are (i) to ensure that people in Europe who are overweight can receive the best available support for weight management and prevention of co-morbid disease, (ii) to reduce obesity prevalence in European populations through prevention strategies, and (iii) to take account of socio-demographic inequalities in the use of health services and in response to prevention initiatives.To fulfil these objectives, the Federation offers web-based training for professional obesity treatment and weight management, provided by recognised experts and available to practitioners across the Community's services. The Federation is also a source of data and policy information for the development of prevention strategies in the region.In 2016 the programme of work includes the expansion of the web-based training course, the development of a scholarship programme for lower-income Member States, the development of a suite of downloadable graphics on prevalence and inequalities in English and five other EU languages, updating the interactive maps and developing an Atlas and set of Country Record Cards. These activities support the Community’s 3rd Health Programme, Specific Objective 1 for cost effective disease prevention (including: good practices for disease prevention and health promotion) and Specific Objective 3 for building health systems (including: cross-border expertise and public health interventions and prevention strategies).
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The Association of European Cancer Leagues (ECL) is an NGO leading on cancer control actions at the European level since 1980. Represented by members in EU and non-EU countries, cancer leagues are the main resource for the public for cancer control information and services. As the only network exclusively for cancer leagues, ECL provides a unique platform for cancer leagues to share knowledge and experience. Prior to receiving operational grant funding, the running of ECL had been financed mainly by membership fees. The addition of EU co-financing since 2015 has allowed ECL to implement activities more effectively in line with our multi-annual strategy, leading to the progressive increase in activities across all 5 of our strategic goals, providing considerable EU added-value in the process. EU co-funding has enabled ECL to increase our work in cancer prevention, especially the promotion of the European Code Against Cancer (ECAC). This has led to the design of new communication tools to raise awareness amongst the general public; the creation of a youth ambassadors programme to improve dissemination amongst young people; and enhanced networking opportunities for leagues allowing them to share best practice and collaborate more efficiently. In 2017, ECL will continue to disseminate the ECAC, making efforts to measure and assess the impact of these activities. ECL will increase efforts to have explicit references to the ECAC in updated National Cancer Control Plans, and will place greater emphasis on the role of cancer leagues in promoting organised cancer screening programmes. ECL will continue its leading role in tobacco control by supporting the 2017 European Conference on Tobacco or Health (ECToH). ECL shall also launch a new task force on the crucial issue of equal access to medicines. This will complement ECL's ongoing secretariat work on behalf of the MEPs Against Cancer interest group of the European Parliament, and the Patient Support Working Group of ECL.
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This is the third year of a 3-year FPA. This year we propose to continue the work described in the FPA, disseminating good health care practices through our SCOPE online training programme, our SCOPE Schools and our SCOPE scholarship scheme. We will continue and expand our information activities using interactive maps and freely downloadable graphics showing obesity prevalence and trends, inequalities, co-morbidities, costs, upstream drivers, national policies and community interventions.

Variations on the original FPA proposals are (i) no further translation of the SCOPE online modules (English, French, Portuguese and Spanish are now available, German is not being requested); (ii) extending the SCOPE scholarship programme to encourage participation by health professionals in lower-income Member States; (iii) increasing the number of freely available downloadable graphics in minority languages to provide at least 30 graphics in each of the 24 working languages of the EU; (iv) increasing the number of community interventions mapped to at least 140 across the region; (v) extending the Atlas and Country Record Cards to provide longer Country Reports for each Member State.
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