Conflict of Interest Coalition Statement of Concern

1. Recognise and distinguish between industries including business-interest not-for-profit organisations (BINGOs) and public interest non-governmental organisations (PINGOs) that are both currently under the ‘Civil Society’ umbrella without distinction.

2. Develop a ‘Code of Conduct’ that sets out a clear framework for interacting with the food and beverage industry and managing conflicts of interest, and which differentiates between policy development and implementation.

Since the major causes of preventable death are driven by diseases related to tobacco, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity and alcohol drinking, we are concerned that many of the proposals to address NCDs call for ‘partnerships’ in these areas with no clarification of what this actually means.

Public-private partnerships in these areas can counteract efforts to regulate harmful marketing practices.

It is essential that a strong and clear policy on conflicts of interest is established by the international community to provide Member States with guidance to identify conflicts, eliminate those that are not permissible and manage those considered, based on thorough risk/benefit analysis, acceptable. Transparency, although an essential requirement and first step, is not a sufficient safeguard in and of itself against negative impacts of conflicts of interest.

We propose that the following framework be used as a basis for a ‘code of conduct’ for industry

The policy development stage should be free from industry involvement to ensure a “health in all policies” approach, which is not compromised by the obvious conflicts of interests associated with the food alcohol, beverage and other industries, that are primarily answerable to shareholders.

These industries should, of course, be kept informed about policy development, through stakeholder briefings for example, but should not be in an influencing position when it comes to setting policy and strategies for addressing public health issues, such as NCD prevention and control.

While it is important for these industries to be in dialogue during the policy development process, this should be as a means of informing the process relating to practical issues rather than as members of the policy development team.

Industries are both part of the NCD problem and the solution. It is vital, therefore, to engage them in the most appropriate way when implementing policy and not when developing policy, to ensure that public health policy is protected from commercial interests.

Without this approach, WHO’s principles of democratic policy-making for health, its constitutional mandate of the attainment of the highest possible level of health for all, and its independence, integrity and effectiveness will be undermined. Without such a policy, conflicts of interest can become institutionalised as the norm, impacting on the authority of governments. Industries with a strong interest in the outcome will increasingly assume greater roles in policy and decision shaping. This can fundamentally compromise and distort international and national public health priorities and policies.

The conflict of interest concern is not limited to the direct involvement of industry. UN agencies, including the WHO, are unanimous in recognising the important contributions NGOs make in the area of public health and are aware of the growth of these organisations in their numbers and influence in health at global, regional and national levels, including in the area of NCDs. However, WHO and others have so far not made a clear distinction between BINGOs (businessinterest NGOs not-for-profit organisations that are set up by, representing or closely linked to, business interests) and PINGOs - public-interest NGOs. This failure to distinguish between the two groupings exacerbates any existing lack of transparency and complicates implementation of any procedures which aim to manage the role of these actors in policy and standard-setting consultations. In the Civil Society Interactive Hearing on 16th June, there was no clear differentiation between groups within Civil Society. The voice of Civil Society ought to reflect only public health interests.

The safeguards in Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, the WHO International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes, the Resolutions on Infant and Young Child Nutrition and the Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health can be used among other helpful tools to establish measures that go beyond individual conflicts of interests, and address institutional conflicts of interest.

In summary, we call on the UN to recognise and distinguish between BINGOs and PINGOs that are currently under the ‘Civil Society’ umbrella and to develop a ‘code of conduct’ framework for industry engagement that differentiates between policy development and implementation. We ask for the UN to consider our comments and take them into account for the UN High Level Meeting in September.