African civil society organizations working to promote and defend sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) taxes in Cameroun, Nigeria and South Africa on Wednesday, October 16, 2024, jointly released a report exposing the beverage industry’s global campaign to frustrate policies and weaken appropriate taxes aimed at protecting public health.
The report, titled: Sweetened Profits: The Industry’s Playbook to Fight Sweetened Beverage Taxes, exposed 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, Reconciliation and Development Association (RADA) in Cameroun and Healthy Living Alliance (HEALA) 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 October 15 to October 22, 2024 and to highlight attempts by the Sweetened Beverage industry to weaken governments’ efforts to adopt appropriate 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 impacts environmental sustainability.
It comes just as African nations are grappling with soaring rates of diet-related non-communicable diseases, with organizations including RADA pushing for a sweetened beverage and UPP tax in Cameroun, while CAPPA and HEALA in Nigeria and South Africa continue to protect the existing tax and call for the government to strengthen it to reach its public health objective.
Vice President, Food and Nutrition, GHAI, Verónica Schoj, said: “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. 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 over 25 countries, including economic alarmism in Nigeria and Pakistan where economic arguments are deployed to suggest that SB taxes would lead to job losses and economic downturns.
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The industry exploits social concerns, as their efforts in Indonesia show how the industry uses Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) to overshadow their products’ negative health impacts.
Manipulating tax designs as in Vietnam, where industry bodies have pushed to exclude certain drinks from taxation and mounting legal challenges as in Colombia and Spain, which highlight how legal threats and challenges are used to intimidate governments and contest the legality of SB taxes.
Another industry is to discredit scientific evidence as observed in Guam and China where industry-funded researches are leveraged to question the effectiveness of SB taxes.
Executive Director of CAPPA, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said: “In Nigeria, beverage companies continue to exploit false narratives and inaccurate health claims with disregard for the health of the people. Their approach does not only show their focus on profit but reinforces the alarming way they mislead the public and interfere in policy processes.”
President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of RADA, Ferdinant M. Sonyuy, said: “In Cameroun, the 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.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of HEALA, Nzama Mbalati, said: “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 bear the burden of ill-health.
The report, therefore, urged policymakers, civil society and health advocates to anticipate and counter the industry tactics with robust, evidence-based SB tax designs that prioritize health over profits.
