How food, beverage giants influence WHO rules

A leaked mail from the In ternational Food and Beverages 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 Organization's (WHO) engagement with the private sector. Ever since the 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 policymaking activities of the 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 the IFBA -which includes Coca Cola, Pepsico, Nestle, McDonald's and Unilever -is being backed by several countries of western Europe, Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand and the US, which appear to have pledged to not accept any framework that excludes the food and beverage industry .

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

Civil society organizations 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, 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, IFBA secretary general Rocco Renaldi thanked Food and Consumer Products of Canada, the largest association in Canada of those industries, and the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), a US-based association, for helping to drive home what would be an acceptable outcome for the alliance in the tussle to frame rules for WHO's engagement with the private sector.