Movendi International Supports SAFER Nepal Mission to Help Improve Health, and Development Through High-Impact Alcohol Policy Solutions
The Ministry of Health and Population, the World Health Organization, and global and civil society partner organizations, including Movendi International, announced an ambitious roadmap to advance high-impact alcohol policy solutions to protect more people from alcohol harm.
The SAFER Nepal roadmap charts the way forward for the government to implement the SAFER alcohol policy blue print. The SAFER alcohol policy package consists of high impact and proven interventions to prevent and reduce alcohol harm in Nepal. These interventions include reducing alcohol availability, preventing driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI), increasing access to alcohol treatment and brief interventions for people with alcohol use problems, banning alcohol advertising and sponsorship, and raising alcohol excise taxes to promote health and prevent harm.
Nepal is one of only two countries so far that are collaborating with the SAFER Initiative to improve health and development through high-impact alcohol policy solutions.
Movendi International and local member organizations are also supporting SAFER Uganda.
In Nepal, Movendi International and WHO in Nepal agreed to partner for building capacity among decision-makers to address alcohol harm with proven, high-impact policy solutions. Another area of collaboration is to provide technical guidance on conflict of interest safeguards and to protect alcohol policy development from alcohol industry interference.
Movendi International will also increase its support for civil society in Nepal to be key partners in SAFER Nepal, for example through capacity building for advocacy and alcohol industry counter-action, but also effective awareness campaigns to increase public recognition of the real harm caused by alcohol.
Movendi International is also committed to help ensure full implementation of the ambitious SAFER Nepal Roadmap, beyond the concrete and initial areas of partnership in the country outlined above.
People in Nepal hold strong beliefs about community values. For the people of Nepal, relationships are important as means to achieve shared goals and identity. They value responsibility towards others in the community.
Thanks to these values the people of Nepal assign the highest priority to health and well-being of their families, communities, and society at large. According to the World Health Organization, 72.9% of Nepalese people (61.6% male, 82.9% female) live alcohol-free.
That’s why it matters that families and communities are protected from alcohol harms.
But in Nepal, the products and practices of the alcohol industry are increasingly putting children, youth, and entire communities into alcohol harm’s way. Violence, road traffic deaths, mental ill-health, liver disease – every Nepalese knows someone who has been harmed by alcohol.
In Nepal, between 2013 to 2018 the number of people consuming alcohol in the past month grew by 20%. Of those who consume alcohol in Nepal, more than a third engage in heavy alcohol use. And one in six current or former alcohol users drove under the influence of alcohol in the last 30 days.