Department of Sociology and Policy, Aston University, Birmingham, UK.
Int J Health Policy Manag. 2022 Feb 1;11(2):228-232. doi: 10.34172/ijhpm.2020.156.
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.
世界卫生组织(WHO)起草的决策程序和工具,以协助政府预防和管理营养政策中的利益冲突,标志着世卫组织在大公司与营养政策问题上的思维发生了重大转变。如果严格遵循,它将彻底改变营养政策领域的企业与政府之间的关系。Ralston 及其同事概述了食品和饮料行业如何反对决策工具。本评论在他们的研究基础上进一步扩展,将企业权力的更广泛分析纳入行业框架,并探讨了在营养政策中管理行业影响力所面临的挑战。该评论探讨了食品和饮料行业的合作和伙伴关系议程如何试图塑造政策问题和解决方案的解释和实施方式,并探讨了该议程及其有效定义利益冲突的努力如何有效地代表非政策计划。更广泛地说,我们指出会员国在采用该工具时将面临的困难,并强调考虑跨国食品和饮料公司在当代经济中的核心作用对于管理其在营养政策中的影响力的重要性。