Alcohol Advocacy Priorities for the 2025 High-Level Meeting on NCDs
As we approach the High-Level Meeting (HLM) on Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) in 2025, Movendi International is calling for a robust and ambitious political declaration that significantly strengthens the response to alcohol harm.
This year’s high-level meeting is an opportunity to take ambitious decisions to unlock evidence-based action for alcohol policy progress.
The 2024 WHO Global Alcohol Status Report showed that:
Most countries reported no progress on the “best buys” in alcohol policy since 2010, signaling the urgent need for action.”
WHO Global Alcohol Status Report, 2024
One highlight of the HLM on NCDs in 2018 was the high-level alcohol policy side event that Movendi International organized together with countries and the World Health Organization. This event created momentum for alcohol policy and ultimately led to the process of adopting a Global Alcohol Action Plan in 2022.
But our advocacy in 2017 and 2018 did not succeed to improve the 2018 Political Declaration on NCDs. The starting point for advocacy this time around is to clearly understand and address its many flaws, gaps, and areas for improvement concerning alcohol harm, NCDs prevention, mental health promotion, and achieving the SDGs through evidence-based alcohol policy solutions.
The 2018 Political Declaration’s Shortcomings
The 2018 Political Declaration on NCDs failed to adequately address alcohol policy, and we must ensure that this year’s declaration prioritizes evidence-based, high-impact alcohol policy solutions.
1. Lack of Explicit Endorsement of Alcohol Policy Best Buys
The declaration acknowledges the need for policy measures but fails to explicitly endorse the WHO Best Buys or the SAFER package, which are proven, cost-effective interventions for reducing alcohol harm.
The 2018 Political Declaration contained vague and non-committal language regarding alcohol policy. For instance, Article 21 merely called for countries to “promote and implement policy, legislative and regulatory measures, including fiscal measures as appropriate, aiming at minimizing the impact of the main risk factors for non-communicable diseases.” This lack of specificity resulted in insufficient progress on alcohol taxation and other key interventions.
What’s needed: The 2025 declaration should make explicit references to these evidence-based alcohol policy solutions, the SAFER alcohol policy blue print and encourage the full implementation of the Global Alcohol Action Plan without delay.
This is something Movendi International has addressed at the recent World Health Organization Executive Board meeting.
We need the upcoming HLM meeting to drive change by 1) Mainstreaming alcohol policy at country and UN level 2) Ensuring ambitious commitments to alcohol policy for NCDs and 3) Securing a dedicated space for the SAFER initiative to maximize impact.
2. Weak Language on Alcohol Taxation and Other Fiscal Policies
Article 21 mentions fiscal measures but fails to clearly mandate alcohol taxation as a primary tool for NCDs prevention – a powerful tool for alleviating costs and burden on strained healthcare systems, for instance through preventing and reducing cancers and cardiovascular conditions caused by alcohol. In addition, raising alcohol taxes helps fund much-needed health services for the treatment of NCDs and mental health conditions.
What’s needed: The 2025 declaration should clearly commit countries to raise alcohol taxes as a key policy for public health protection and revenue generation for universal health coverage.
This is something Movendi International has addressed at the recent World Health Organization Executive Board meeting.
With greater attention to alcohol policy in general and alcohol taxation in particular it is possible to reduce costs and increase revenue for investments in UHC. We are calling for a much more ambitious focus on the alcohol policy best buys to unlock their under-utilized potential to drive progress towards UHC.
3. Alcohol’s Role in Mental Health Is Overlooked
Article 11 recognizes mental health as part of the NCD burden, but there is no direct mention of alcohol’s significant contribution to mental disorders, suicide, and neurological diseases.
For perspective: WHO data shows that in 2019, an estimated 400 million people aged 15 years and older had an Alcohol Use Disorder (representing 7.0% of adults), and out of those 209 million people aged 15 years and older lived with alcohol dependence.
What’s needed: The new declaration should explicitly acknowledge alcohol as a major risk factor for mental health disorders and ensure alcohol policy is included in mental health strategies.
4. No Clear Integration of Alcohol into Universal Health Coverage (UHC)
Article 35 focuses on strengthening health systems for UHC but does not include prevention of alcohol harm as a critical component of reaching universal health coverage.
What’s needed: Alcohol policy should be explicitly recognized as an integral part of UHC efforts, both in reducing the NCD burden and overall health system burden, in financing critical health services, and in ensuring financial protection against alcohol-related health costs.
5. No Commitment to Reducing Per Capita Alcohol Consumption
The declaration of 2018 uses the misleading phrase “harmful use of alcohol” (Article 5, 20, 34), which diverts attention away from the need to reduce overall consumption and to adequately convey the NCDs burden caused by alcohol – which comes in considerable amounts also from low amounts of alcohol consumption, for instance for cancer and conditions affecting the human brain.
The SDG target 3.5.2 aims to reduce per capita alcohol use by 10%. However, the declaration does not link its commitments to achieving SDG 3.5.
What’s needed: The 2025 declaration should explicitly aim to reduce per capita alcohol consumption, aligning with SDG 3.5 and the WHO Global Alcohol Action Plan.
6. The Political Declaration Treats Alcohol Like a Normal Market Commodity
Article 44(b) invites alcohol producers to “contribute to reducing harmful use”, assuming – against all evidence – that industry actors will regulate themselves.
As we document with compelling evidence from the Big Alcohol Exposed Annual Report 2024 and what multiple scientific studies confirm: the alcohol industry has failed to meet such commitments, deliberately sabotages and violates WHO-recommended alcohol policy solutions, and actively lobbies against effective policy measures.
Fr example, report documents predatory alcohol marketing practices by alcohol companies. These run clearly counter to provision 44(c) of the 2018 declaration according to which Big Alcohol was supposed to take concrete steps to eliminate alcohol marketing to minors.
What’s needed: The 2025 declaration should remove or completely rewrite OP 44, ensuring that alcohol producers have no role in shaping policy.
7. Commercial Determinants of Health (CDoH) and Conflicts of Interest Are Largely Ignored
The 2018 declaration did not properly acknowledge the role of commercial determinants of health (CDoH) and conflicts of interest. Article 43 briefly mentions “due regard to managing conflicts of interest” but does not provide any specific safeguards against industry interference.
The declaration fails to name health-harming industries as structural barriers to NCD prevention.
Article 43 lacked clear guidelines for mitigating industry interference in policymaking. The declaration also failed to adequately highlight alcohol’s contribution to the broader global health crisis, including its impact on mental health and infectious diseases.
What’s needed: The 2025 declaration should explicitly recognize alcohol industry interference as a major obstacle to progress and integrate recommendations from the WHO Europe report on corporate health harms.
This matters greatly because WHO data shows countries continued to report interference from the alcohol industry in alcohol policy development:
In 2019, two out of every five people lived in a country that reported such interference over the past three years.”
WHO Global Alcohol Status Report, 2024
Key Advocacy Priorities for the 2025 HLM on NCDs
The 2024 WHO Global Alcohol Status Report made the stakes for alcohol policy at this year’s High-Level Meeting on NCDs clear:
The current trends indicate that the global target set for alcohol consumption will not be met by 2030, and achievement of this target will require political commitment, strong advocacy and resource mobilization for the rigorous implementation of the Global alcohol action plan 2022–2030, with a focus on the high-impact policy measures included in the SAFER package.
WHO Global Alcohol Status Report, 2024
Therefore, we in Movendi International are committed to stepping up our advocacy in partnership with our members around the world, based on these nine priorities for a fruitful and ambitious outcome document of the 2025 High-Level Meeting on NCDs.
What we want is new and robust momentum for alcohol policy as cornerstone for NCDs prevention and control, and as key element for global health improvements and progress towards the SDGs until 2030.
- High-Impact Alcohol Policy Measures: Best Buys and SAFER
- The 2025 declaration should explicitly endorse the Best Buys and SAFER alcohol policy blue print as essential tools for NCDs progress.
- Governments should be urged to implement the measures contained in the WHO Global Alcohol Action Plan with urgency and without industry interference.
- Stronger Commitment to Alcohol Taxation and other Pro-Health Taxes
- The new declaration should go beyond the vague language of 2018 and explicitly call for raising alcohol taxes as a public health priority.
- Alcohol taxation should be framed as a key tool for both NCD prevention and sustainable development progress.
- Improved Recognition of Risk Factors and Links to Other Health Areas
- The political declaration should recognize that NCD risk factors, including alcohol, affect other global health areas, such as mental health, women’s, children’s and adolescents’ health, infectious diseases, and more.
- Alcohol harm should be explicitly linked to Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including those beyond SDG 3 – the health for all goal.
- Pivot to Prevention and Health Promotion
- The declaration should prioritize prevention strategies over health harming industries-favored harm reduction and self-regulation approaches.
- Governments should commit to comprehensive public health strategies rather than relying on voluntary industry pledges.
- Removal of the Term “Harmful Use of Alcohol”
- The flawed and outdated concept of “harmful use of alcohol” should be eliminated from the declaration, as it misrepresents the fundamental issue: alcohol consumption itself is a major risk factor for NCDs.
- The focus should shift to reducing overall alcohol consumption, harm and costs – and the benefits of population-level alcohol policy solutions.
- Complete Removal or Overhaul of OP 44
- The 2025 declaration should remove the provision inviting alcohol industry engagement in policy efforts.
- Clear evidence demonstrates that the alcohol industry has failed to reduce alcohol harm or eliminate marketing to minors, and actively undermines public health policies.
- Stronger Language on CDoH and Conflicts of Interest
- The political declaration should clearly define health-harming industries and recognize them as obstacles to NCD prevention and control.
- Stronger safeguards should be implemented to prevent conflicts of interest in NCDs prevention and control and industry interference in policymaking.
- Inclusion of WHO Europe’s Findings on Commercial Determinants of Health
- The WHO Europe report showing that four industries—including alcohol—are responsible for 19 million deaths per year should be cited.
- This evidence should be used to achieve better standards for health harming industries regulations and reduced industry influence in global and public health policymaking.
- Call for a High-Level Meeting on Alcohol Before 2030
- Given the enormous health, economic, and societal burden of alcohol harm, a dedicated HLM on alcohol should be scheduled before 2030.
- This would allow for a more focused discussion on alcohol policy, free from the competing priorities of the broader NCD agenda.
The way towards the 2025 HLM
The 2018 Political Declaration on NCDs failed to deliver strong action on alcohol policy, leaving room for alcohol industry interference and inadequate responses.
Movendi International is advocating for a much more ambitious, evidence-based political declaration in 2025 that prioritizes alcohol taxation, other health promotion strategies, and alcohol industry accountability.
We call on policymakers to ensure that the upcoming HLM on NCDs delivers meaningful commitments to protect public health and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
Movendi International urges all stakeholders free from conflicts of interest to support these advocacy priorities and push for an ambitious, comprehensive, effective response to alcohol harm at the 2025 High-Level Meeting on NCDs.
