By Chidi Ugwu
African civil society organisations working to promote and defend sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes in Cameroon, Nigeria, and South Africa on Wednesday, 16 October 2024, jointly released a report exposing the beverage industry’s global campaign to thwart policies and weaken taxes that protect public health.
The report, titled “Sweetened Profits: The Industry’s Playbook to Fight Sweetened Beverage Taxes,” demonstrates how the beverage industry, also referred to as Big Soda, uses a global playbook of strategies to deny, dilute, and delay effective policy on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and other healthy food policies.
The African CSOs are Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) in Nigeria, RADA (Reconciliation and Development Association (RADA) in Cameroun and HEALA (Healthy Living Alliance) in South Africa.
First unveiled in September 2024 by the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI), the report was re-launched in Africa as part of activities for the Global Week for Action on non-communicable diseases (NCDs) from 15 – 22 October and also to highlight efforts by the Sweetened Beverage industry to weaken governments’ efforts to adopt SSB Tax and other important public health interventions on the continent.
GHAI’s comprehensive analysis demonstrates how Big Soda not only uses its playbook to fuel the consumption of sugary drinks – a known driver of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other serious health problems – but also negatively impact environmental sustainability.
It comes just as African nations are grappling with soaring rates of diet-related non-communicable diseases, with organisations including RADA pushing for a sweetened beverage and UPP tax in Cameroun, while CAPPA in Nigeria and HEALA in South Africa continue to protect the existing tax and call for the government to strengthen it to reach its public health objective.
“While the global community is working towards creating healthier populations, Big Soda is using its influence to derail policies that could save millions of lives and billions in healthcare costs,” said Verónica Schoj, Vice President, Food and Nutrition, GHAI. “Our report reveals the depth and breadth of the industry’s efforts to protect its profits at the expense of public health.”
Through exhaustive monitoring and analysis, GHAI identified five strategies employed by Big Soda to obstruct SB taxes across more than 25 countries.
These include: “Economic Alarmism: As seen in Nigeria and Pakistan, economic arguments are deployed to suggest that SB taxes would lead to job losses and economic downturns; Exploiting Social Concerns: Efforts in Indonesia show how the industry uses corporate social responsibility to overshadow their products’ negative health impacts; Manipulating Tax Designs: Instances such as in Vietnam, where industry bodies have pushed to exclude certain drinks from taxation; Mounting Legal Challenges: Examples from Colombia and Spain highlight how legal threats and challenges are used to intimidate governments and contest the legality of SB taxes; and Discrediting Scientific Evidence: Tactics observed in Guam and China where industry-funded research is leveraged to question the effectiveness of SB taxes.
In Nigeria, “Beverage companies continue to exploit false narratives and inaccurate health claims with disregard for the health of the people,” said Akinbode Oluwafemi, Executive Director, [CAPPA]. “Their approach does not only show their focus on profit but reinforces the alarming way they mislead the public and interfere in policy processes,” he concluded.
In Cameroon, “Industry is highly involved in sports and donation of hospital-related equipment and facilities. This masks the negative impact of the source of the financing for their philanthropy” said Ferdinant M. Sonyuy, the President/CEO of RADA, in Cameroon.
In South Africa, “The sugar industry uses the same playbook tactics employed by the tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and ultra-processed food industries, which are often a barrier to the implementation of public health policies. These come at a high cost for ordinary citizens who carry the burden of ill health,” said Nzama Mbalati, CEO HEALA.
The GHAI report calls on policymakers, civil society and health advocates to anticipate and counter these tactics with robust, evidence-based SB tax designs that prioritize health over industry profits.
