Currently browsing posts about: Advocacy

If you are going to do advocacy (or be an activist, if you prefer), it’s likely to be far more effective if done right.  The steps begin with identifying the problem you want solved, deciding what you want to do to solve it, and figuring out who or what you have to convince to solve the problem.

Note: the best thing I’ve ever read about how to do this is the Midwest Academy’s how-to manual for activists, Organizing for Social Change.

Research is a crucial component of effective policy advocacy; it’s the basis of convincing change agents to agree to make the change.

The Global Health Advocacy Incubator (“Changing Policies to Change Lives”) and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids have  just published Research for Advocacy Action Guide: Five Stretegies to Use Research in a Policy Change campaign.

This tells you what to look for, how to find it, what to highlight, and how to present it. Download the Guide.

The research piece extends the information in these groups’ Advocacy Action Guide, a shorter version of the information from the Midwest Academy.

Advocacy done “by the book” has a much better chance of success than what might seem intuitive.  These guides are well worth reading.

Advocacy, by the way, is one of the words on the government’s new forbidden list.  This alone is why we need it more than ever.  Get to work!

The United Nations has issued a digital Food Systems Thinking Guide for UN Resident Coordinators and UN Country Teams with tools and information for working collectively towards food system transformation.

It is intended as a working draft.  It provides an easy mechanism for immediate feedback.

You have to do a lot of scrolling.  When you do, you will get to key questions:

• What is a food systems approach and why does it matter?
• What is the state of food systems in my country?
• Who are the actors influencing the foods system?
• What are barriers and entry points to food system transformation?
• How can I integrate foods systems approach into programming?
• How can I communicate and advocate for foods systems transformation?

I took a look at the actors.  This section provides resources for engaging with stakeholders.

I also looked at barriers.  It lists things to consider and provides resources.

And I looked at communication strategies.  This one is much more complete and has useful videos and key messages along with the resources.

I see this as an advocacy toolkit focused on food system transformation.  Happy to have it.  Try it and give the UN some feedback on it to make it even better and more complete.

As a long-time proponent of food advocacy, I’ve been collecting suggestions for what you and I can do to stop or counter presidential decrees that we think damaging to Americans and American democracy.

A lot of this is easy.  Do it!

• State your opinion to Washington: Call the Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121.
• State your opinion to your representatives. To find your representative, click here.  To find your Senator, click here.
• Protect the vulnerable in your community; Urge your state’s attorney general to file complaints, injunctions, and restraining orders. To find your state attorney general, click here.
• Join with others in your community to protest what needs to be protested. To find local organizations working on such issues, click Indivisible here.
• Boycott companies enabling the illegal government takeover. Click here to find out a corporation’s politics.
• Support groups doing the litigating. Track federal cases here.
• Speak truth to power. Get news from reliable sources; spread it.
• Take care of yourself; stay strong.

Much of this has been inspired by Robert Reich’s daily comments on current events, and his summary of needed actions. 

He says,

We will get through this, and we will prevail.”

But it will require confidence, courage, and tenacity. We need to stay healthy for this fight. We need to be fortified by those we care about. And we need to be there for those we love.

His final piece of advice: “keep the faith.”

Do not give up on America. Do not fall into the traps of cynicism and defeatism. Remember, Trump won the popular vote by only 1.5 points. By any historical measure, this was a squeaker…America has deep problems, to be sure. Which is why we can’t give up on it — or give up the fights for social justice, equal political rights, equal opportunity, democracy, and the rule of law.

Here’s what started all this:

P&G, Coca-Cola make Olympics promotional push: Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola are among the companies making a promotional push around the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. P&G is planning to focus its efforts on specific brands such as Pampers diapers and Gillette razors, and Coca-Cola has plans for over 70 markets. Sponsors of the International Olympic Committee have spent 18% more than they did for the Tokyo Games in 2021, Comcast reports.

And here’s the response:

TODAY, the global digital campaign, “Hey Big Soda!”  was launched demanding an end to Big Soda’s sponsorship of sport…Please share the campaign with the hashtag #KickBigSodaOutofSport!

Sign the petition from Kick Big Soda Out urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to terminate the Coca-Cola Company’s sponsorship.

For more information: info@kickbigsodaout.org.

In its Week #2 report, Kick Big Soda Out says:

Over 34,000 people have signed the petition, and 60 organizations from 21 countries have endorsed the campaign as Campaign Partner Organizations!

Partner materials are here.

Examples from the Mexico team:

• A demonstration, featuring the campaign and organized by El Poder del Consumidor and other Mexico partners, was held in front of Mexican Olympic Committee Headquarters on July 23. Multiple publications covered the event including Greenpeace Mexico, Aristegui Noticias, Cronica and 24 Morelos, among others.
• Simón Barquera, took to Instagram and Twitter to urge his followers to sign and share the “Kick Big Soda Out of Sport” petition. https://x.com/SBarquera/status/1815410422490825089

Food Politics in action!  Join the campaign.

Will wonders never cease.  You might think that of course the School Nutrition Association, which represents people who cook and staff school meal programs, would be in favor of universal free meals for all school kids, but I was amazed to see its 2023 Position Paper.

This asks Congress to:

• Make permanent the reimbursement rate increases for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Program (NSLP/SBP), provided in the bipartisan Keep Kids Fed Act (PL 117-158).
• Expand NSLP/SBP to offer healthy school meals for all students at no charge.
• Ensure USDA maintains current school nutrition standards rather than implement additional, unachievable rules.
• Reduce regulatory and administrative burdens.

I’m surprised because this is the same organization that fought improvements to the rules for school meals, as I have discussed previously.

I think it’s terrific that the SNA is now at the forefront of child nutrition advocacy.

Check out the resources on its website.

See what it’s doing to advocate.

Support these calls!

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Here’s another one I found out from Twitter.

Food Tank’s lists are extremely useful, this one especially.

Here is one example:

11. Black Farmer Fund, United States

A community investment fund that aggregates and redistributes the wealth of social impact investors, Black Farmers Fund provides grants and loans to Black farmers and food businesses in New York. Their goal is to build resilient Black food economies. Through this work, the Fund seeks to repair Black communities’ relationships with food. “Black Farmer Fund seeks to provide an alternative way for community-driven Black farmers and food businesses in New York to access capital that is non-extractive, culturally-relevant, and governed by other Black farmers and food business owners,” says Olivia Watkins, President of the Fund.

I’m always asked: What can I join?  Who should I support?

This is one great starting place.

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The Access to Nutrition Initiative (ATNI) has released its latest Index report on the progress of the 11 largest U.S. food and beverage companies on their commitments to make, market and sell healthy food and drinks.

The report’s dismal conclusion:

While all companies have placed a greater focus on nutrition in their corporate strategies since the first index was released in 2018, their actual products have not become healthier, and they are not making sufficient efforts to safeguard children from the marketing of unhealthy products.

Collectively, these copanies have sales of about $170 billion annually and account for nearly 30% of all U.S. food and beverage sales.

The report’s overall findings (the Index is a composite on a scale of 10):

Specific findings:

• Only 30% of their products meet criteria for “healthy,” 70% do not. This is only marginally better than in 2018 (see link to my post on this below).
• Companies say they have a greater focus on nutrition and health, but are not doing much about it.
• Only four companies are trying to improve the affordability of their healthier products.
• Companies say they are trying to protect children from the harmful effects of marketing unhealthy products, but they are not doing much about it.

ATNI recommends that companies fix these problems and that the government “support such changes by introducing more effective and enforceable standards and legislation that prevent the marketing of unhealthy products and push companies to apply reformulation strategies on their products.

I like this recommendation, despite its being couched as “encourage,” rather than as a demand:

Companies are encouraged to actively support (and commit to not lobby against) public policy measures in the US to benefit public health and address obesity as enshrined in the National Strategy on food, hunger, nutrition, and health

Comment: Results liket these come as no surprise.  To repeat: food companies are not social service or public health agencies; they are businesses with stockholders who demand returns on investment as the first priority.

Expecting companies to change products to make them less attractive or to stop marketing to children means asking them to go against their business interests.

Until companies are rewarded for focusing on social values, public health, and environmental sustainability, ATNI’s evaluations are unlikely to have much of an impact on corporate behavior.

Documents

• The press release
• ATNI US Index Executive Summary
• My post on the 2018 ATNI release
• Note: ATNI is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

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The American Journal of Public Health has just published a first look—ahead of its print in June—at my most recent article, Regulating the Food Industry: An Aspirational Agenda [if you are not a member of the American Public Health Association, this will be behind a paywall, alas].

It begins:

I end it with policy recommendations for:

• Dietary guidelines
• Mass media campaigns
• Taxes
• Warning labels
• Marketing restrictions
• Portion size restrictions
• Farm subsidies

Hence, aspirational.

And, I say,

While we are thinking in aspirational terms, let us not forget root causes. We must also demand policies that link agriculture to public health, keep corporate money out of politics, reduce corporate concentration, and require Wall Street evaluate corporations on the basis of social as well as fiscal responsibility.  In comparison with those challenges, takin gon the food industry should be easy.

Let’s get to work.