sport for health aims to reduce the burden of noncommunicable disease in tonga the project has two connected activities strengthening the capacity of the tonga netball association tna to increase opportunities for tongans especially girls and women to participate in quality sport activities and a targeted sport for health intervention harnessing the improved capacity of tna to develop a programme focused on women and girls the sport for health intervention uses a social marketing approach target a specific audience develop specific healthrelated behavioural objectives for that audience take a holistic approach to engendering behaviour change and conduct a baseline and measure the target group s progress through the programme sport is being used to support health in mobilising women and girls to engage in healthy behaviours as a setting to educate women and girls about healthrelated behaviours and as a means to empower girls and women to take the lead in improving health behaviours in their communities the nd pacific island forum declared ncd as a crisis and called for a holistic government approach