Background
In current food environments, energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods are readily available, heavily marketed and relatively cheap. Consumers are challenged to make healthy and affordable food-related decisions that are consistent with a healthy diet. Affordability of food is a key determinant of the food environment and changes in price influence consumer demand for many foods and beverages. Fiscal measures, including both taxation and subsidies have long been recognized as a viable policy option to promote healthy diets. Despite some progress in implementing fiscal measures, governments continue to face challenges in their attempts to develop such measures.
To support Member States in establishing enabling food environments to promote healthy diets and improve nutrition, the World Health Organization (WHO) has produced evidence-informed guidelines on the food environment, including fiscal policies.
The World Health Organization (WHO) is now launching a public consultation on its draft guideline on fiscal policies to promote healthy diets. The recommendations of the draft guideline were formulated based on analyses of published scientific studies on the impact of taxation of foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, on the impact of a subset of food subsidies with the primary intention to change consumer behaviour by lowering prices of targeted foods, as well as of published literature on factors impacting the implementation of food and beverages taxes and subsidies.
When finalized, the guideline will provide countries with evidence-informed recommendations on taxation of foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, and on a subset of food subsidies.
General guidance on providing comments
Comments on the draft guideline will be accepted via the online form that can be accessed (here) from
09 December through
03 February 2023. Anyone who wishes to comment must submit a completed and signed Declaration of Interest (DOI) form. An expert peer-review process will also happen over the same period. Once the peer-review and public consultation are completed, all comments
will be reviewed and considered in finalizing the draft guideline before final clearance by the WHO’s Guidelines Review Committee. Comments invited in particular on overall clarity, considerations and implications for adaptation and
implementation of the guideline, context and setting-specific issues that may not have yet been captured, any errors of fact or missing data.
The consultation has ended.
Contact
Please direct questions regarding the consultation and its outcome to NFS@who.int with the subject “Fiscal policies".