Letting the Fox Build the Hen House: Private Sector Influence at the WHO, with Tracey Wagner-Rizvi
This seminar will examine private sector influence on substantive initiatives at the WHO as well as on the development of the WHO’s Framework of engagement with non-State actors (FENSA), which was adopted in May 2016.
Despite their self-representation as trustworthy partners in addressing health issues, private sector actors work to influence substantive initiatives by the WHO related to the sale and consumption of their products. Private sector actors also engage in a long-game to shape paradigms that determine which policies are pursued and what role private actors are able to play in developing them. These paradigms create an environment conducive to companies and their associations, for example, arguing against regulation and in favour of voluntary measures and representing themselves as legitimate partners in developing health-related policy.
Like other industries, the baby food and soda industries, for example, have pursued their substantive and long-term interests by drawing on a so-called “corporate playbook” of strategies and tactics to access and impact upon global health policy-making at the WHO. These strategies and tactics are underpinned by various forms of power and are iterative and mutually reinforcing. Analysis of FENSA's contested development reveals that the private sector deployed these same strategies and tactics to influence its outcome, and highlights the types of issues against which the WHO must continue to guard itself so as not to undermine the agency’s independence, integrity, credibility and mandate. However, by opening its doors to fuller engagement with the private sector, formalized in FENSA, the WHO has potentially set itself up for even more in-depth corporate influence.
In preparation for this seminar, Dr. Wagner-Rizvi has recommended reading Corporate practices and health: a
framework and mechanisms, Defining and conceptualising the commercial determinants
of health, and Negotiating the Opening of International Organizations to Non-State Actors.
Speaker Profile
Tracey Wagner-Rizvi holds a PhD and an MA in Global Governance from the Balsillie School of International Affairs, University of Waterloo, with focuses on global social governance, and human rights and global justice.
She is currently a Research Associate at the Global Strategy Lab at York University, where she researches the governance of antimicrobial resistance. Prior to that, she was a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, looking at the conduct and influence of the producers of unhealthy commodities (especially of tobacco, alcohol and ultra processed foods) in driving consumption.
She previously lived in Pakistan for 13 years. During that time, she worked for UNICEF, local and international non-governmental organizations, and a national newspaper, and briefly in 2002 for an INGO in Afghanistan. Significantly, she campaigned for legislation in Pakistan banning the marketing of baby formula and observed firsthand the baby food industry’s influence on both national and global health policy and policymaking, leading to her career-long interest in corporate political activity.
Register below and join us on Wednesday, September 24, at 1:00 p.m. ET
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