The World Health Organization, Corporate Power, and the Prevention and Management of Conflicts of Interest in Nutrition Policy Comment on "Towards Preventing and Managing Conflict of Interest in Nutrition Policy? An Analysis of Submissions to a Consultation on a Draft WHO Tool".

Gary Jonas Fooks,Charlotte Godziewski

doi:10.34172/ijhpm.2020.156

Gary Jonas Fooks, Charlotte Godziewski

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.34172/ijhpm.2020.156

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Abstract

The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) draft Decision-Making Process and Tool to assist governments in preventing and managing conflicts of interest in nutrition policy marks a step-change in WHO thinking on large corporations and nutrition policy. If followed closely it stands to revolutionise business-government relations in nutrition policy. Ralston and colleagues outline how the food and beverage industry have argued against the decision-making tool. This commentary expands on their study by setting industry framing within a broader analysis of corporate power and explores the challenges in managing industry influence in nutrition policy. The commentary examines how the food and beverage industry’s collaboration and partnership agenda seeks to shape how policy problems and solutions are interpreted and acted on and explores how this agenda and their efforts to define conflicts of interest effectively represent non-policy programmes. More generally, we point to the difficulties that member states will face in adopting the tool and highlight the importance of considering the central role of transnational food and beverage companies in contemporary economies to managing their influence in nutrition policy.

Highlights

The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) draft Decision-Making Process and Tool[1] to assist governments in preventing and managing conflicts of interest in nutrition policy[1,2] marks a step-change in WHO thinking on large corporations and nutrition policy as well as an implied acknowledgement that the commodification of food systems by large transnational corporations is driving the global epidemic of diet-related diseases.[3,4,5,6,7,8,9]
Examples of high-risk engagement outlined in an appendix to the tool are extensive and include: those taking place during policy development, monitoring and evaluation; health promotion campaigns; those occurring under conditions of ‘low visibility’; and financial contributions where ‘the external actor advertises its contribution in its promotional material to promote its Department of Sociology and Policy, Aston University, Birmingham, UK
The take home message of the paper – that all commercial actors were highly critical of the tool – is instructive, if unsurprising. Their analysis of the policy frames used by commercial actors provides an important guide to the discursive architecture that underpins contemporary corporate political activity within nutrition policy

Summary

Introduction

The World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) draft Decision-Making Process and Tool[1] to assist governments in preventing and managing conflicts of interest in nutrition policy[1,2] marks a step-change in WHO thinking on large corporations and nutrition policy as well as an implied acknowledgement that the commodification of food systems by large transnational corporations is driving the global epidemic of diet-related diseases.[3,4,5,6,7,8,9] The decisionmaking tool encompasses a six-step process of risk assessment, balancing and mitigation.[1,10,11] It applies generally to non-state actors and is presented as a resource that ‘governments may decide, at their discretion, to follow...completely or partially.’[1].

Results

Conclusion