Al SouthDavid Reubi a,n, Clare Herrick b, Tim Brown ca b cSocial Science, Health and Medicine, King’s College London, United Kingdom Geography, King’s College London, United Kingdom Geography, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdomart ic l e i nf oArticle history: RDX5791 solubility Received 2 June 2015 Received in revised form 28 August 2015 Accepted 1 September 2015 Available online 11 September 2015 Keywords: Bayer 41-4109 supplier non-communicable disease Global South Global health Politics Carea b s t r a c tIn this paper, we explore the emergence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as an object of political concern in and for countries of the global South. While epidemiologists and public health practitioners and scholars have long expressed concern with the changing global distribution of the burden of NCDs, it is only in more recent years that the aetiology, politics and consequences of these shifts have become an object of critical social scientific enquiry. These shifts mark the starting point for this special issue on `The Politics of NCDs in the Global South’ and act as the basis for new, critical interventions in how we understand NCDs. In this paper, we aim not only to introduce and contextualise the six contributions that form this special issue, but also to identify and explore three themes ?problematisation, care and culture ?that index the main areas of analytical and empirical concern that have motivated analyses of NCDs in the global South and are central to critical engagement with their political contours. 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).1. Introduction Over the last 10 years, concern has been mounting over rapid rises in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the global South and the health and economic burden they represent. This has been driven, in part, by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which has published a number of reports on the topic and most recently adopted a Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases 2013?020 (WHO, 2010; WHO, 2013). The World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ?two of the leading organisations in international development ?have also been active and issued discussion and policy papers about `the mounting danger of chronic diseases’ for emerging economies (World Bank, 2011; UNDP, 2013). Governments, too, have expressed their alarm over this rising threat, recently passing a Political Declaration on the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases at a highlevel meeting of the United Nations’ General Assembly, the second of only two such meetings held about health (United Nations, 2011). Of course, this attention to chronic diseases in the global South has not been the sole preserve of international organisations and governments. Public health and medical experts have long called for more attention to be paid to NCDs in this region. For example, one of the leading voices in the global health community,Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D. Reubi), [email protected] (C. Herrick), [email protected] (T. Brown).nThe Lancet, has published regular special issues with research on the epidemiological, economic and clinical aspects of chronic diseases since 2005 (e.g. Horton, 2005; Beaglehole and Horton, 2010; Geneau et al., 2010). Likewise, civil society and the private sector are showing a growing.Al SouthDavid Reubi a,n, Clare Herrick b, Tim Brown ca b cSocial Science, Health and Medicine, King’s College London, United Kingdom Geography, King’s College London, United Kingdom Geography, Queen Mary University of London, United Kingdomart ic l e i nf oArticle history: Received 2 June 2015 Received in revised form 28 August 2015 Accepted 1 September 2015 Available online 11 September 2015 Keywords: Non-communicable disease Global South Global health Politics Carea b s t r a c tIn this paper, we explore the emergence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) as an object of political concern in and for countries of the global South. While epidemiologists and public health practitioners and scholars have long expressed concern with the changing global distribution of the burden of NCDs, it is only in more recent years that the aetiology, politics and consequences of these shifts have become an object of critical social scientific enquiry. These shifts mark the starting point for this special issue on `The Politics of NCDs in the Global South’ and act as the basis for new, critical interventions in how we understand NCDs. In this paper, we aim not only to introduce and contextualise the six contributions that form this special issue, but also to identify and explore three themes ?problematisation, care and culture ?that index the main areas of analytical and empirical concern that have motivated analyses of NCDs in the global South and are central to critical engagement with their political contours. 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).1. Introduction Over the last 10 years, concern has been mounting over rapid rises in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in the global South and the health and economic burden they represent. This has been driven, in part, by the World Health Organisation (WHO) which has published a number of reports on the topic and most recently adopted a Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases 2013?020 (WHO, 2010; WHO, 2013). The World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ?two of the leading organisations in international development ?have also been active and issued discussion and policy papers about `the mounting danger of chronic diseases’ for emerging economies (World Bank, 2011; UNDP, 2013). Governments, too, have expressed their alarm over this rising threat, recently passing a Political Declaration on the Prevention and Control of Non-Communicable Diseases at a highlevel meeting of the United Nations’ General Assembly, the second of only two such meetings held about health (United Nations, 2011). Of course, this attention to chronic diseases in the global South has not been the sole preserve of international organisations and governments. Public health and medical experts have long called for more attention to be paid to NCDs in this region. For example, one of the leading voices in the global health community,Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (D. Reubi), [email protected] (C. Herrick), [email protected] (T. Brown).nThe Lancet, has published regular special issues with research on the epidemiological, economic and clinical aspects of chronic diseases since 2005 (e.g. Horton, 2005; Beaglehole and Horton, 2010; Geneau et al., 2010). Likewise, civil society and the private sector are showing a growing.