How food, beverage giants influence WHO rules

Rema Nagarajan

A LEAKED mail from the International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA) has revealed the hectic lobbying by this alliance of the world's largest food and beverage companies to influence the framing of rules on the World Health Organisation's engagement with the private sector.

Ever since WHO started focusing on the global epidemic of diet-related ailments like cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, food and beverage companies have been trying to be part of the standard-setting and policy-making activities of WHO.

The mail, which referred to the WHO secretariat's ongoing work on its Framework for Engagement with Non-State Actors (FENSA), also revealed how IFBA, which includes Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestle, McDonald's and Unilever, is being backed by the developed world - several countries of Western Europe, Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and the US - who appear to have pledged to not accept any framework which excludes the food and beverage industry.

Over 45 civil society organisations from across the world signed a public statement calling upon delegates at the World Health Assembly (WHA) to defend the integrity, independence and democratic accountability of WHO. The statement said that the mail illustrated the lengths to which the corporations would go to ensure that they get access to policy-making in WHO and the degree to which member states could be 'persuaded' to support them.

Civil society organisations have been objecting to WHO clubbing private for-profit companies and business associations and alliances of such companies, along with big philanthropies, academic institutions and non-profit public interest groups under the head of 'non-state actors'.

The leaked mail referred to alliance representatives having several 'outreach meetings' on FENSA with the missions of the US, the UK, Canada and Latvia (which currently holds the European Union presidency) in Geneva. The WHO secretariat has been working on FENSA in the context of its reform process.

In the mail, Rocco Renaldi, Secretary General of IFBA, thanked the Food and Consumer Products of Canada (FCPC), the largest industry association in Canada representing the food and consumer products industry, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), a US-based trade association of the food industry, for helping to drive home what would be an acceptable outcome for the alliance in the tussle to frame the rules for WHO's engagement with the private sector.

The mail proudly announced that following a meeting of the WEOG group (Western Europe, Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and the US), there was 'full alignment among these countries on a position that is essentially equivalent to ours'. It added that while the WEOG would actively work for the framework to be adopted it 'will not accept any document that excludes the food and beverage industry from the framework'.

The mail went on to state: 'The US' forecast is that it will be possible to make sufficient progress for a new draft Framework to be developed in the run up to WHA and to be finalised via drafting groups during the WHA. But this is only one forecast and much will depend on the Chair's (Argentina) ability and willingness to reach an agreement.'

According to the mail, 'helpful outreach' was also conducted by IFBA members, associates and partner organisations in a number of capitals which included several emerging economies and developing countries in Africa and the Asia Pacific. In Brazil's proposal on the draft framework it had taken a clear stance against international business associations and philanthropic foundations being granted 'official relations' status with WHO and had instead suggested that they be given only observer status. From the IFBA email, it appears that there is a targeted effort by the alliance to make Brazil change its stance.

While many of the countries were identified by IFBA as being 'in favour of our positions', some were found amenable to highlighting how incongruent it would be to 'exclude private sector organisations from official relations with WHO'.                                   

This article is reproduced from The Times of India (22 May 2015).