Developing a Package of Effective Regulatory Interventions for Healthier Food Environments in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda

Abstract

Low and middle-income countries are experiencing the burden of nutrition-related non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as diabetes, largely driven by increasingly unhealthy food environments. Although there is growing international consensus on the policy actions (in particular fiscal and regulatory policies) needed to create healthy food environments and prevent nutrition-related NCDs, few countries in Africa have the local evidence to motivate action or the capacity to adopt such policy interventions.

The overarching goal of this project is to identify context-relevant priority actions that promote healthy food consumption patterns and facilitate knowledge translation pathways to prevent nutrition-related NCDs in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The project will mainly adapt methodological approaches developed by the International Network for Food and Obesity NCDs Research Monitoring and Action Support (INFORMAS), a global network of public-interest organizations and researchers that monitors, benchmarks, and supports public and private sector actions to increase healthy food environments. More than 35 countries have implemented various INFORMAS approaches, some funded by IDRC. The project will also estimate the economic costs of policy inaction and the political and legal feasibility of potential policy and regulatory interventions for improving food environments.

This project will be funded through the Global Regulatory and Fiscal Capacity Building Program, a multi-agency parallel-funding partnership between IDRC, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, the OPEC Fund for International Development, the International Development Law Organization, and the World Health Organization.