Alcohol Policy As Catalyst For Sustainable Development and NCDs Prevention

Name: Alcohol Policy As Catalyst For Sustainable Development and NCDs Prevention
Start: 2025-09-25T13:15:00-04:00
End: 2025-09-25T14:30:00-04:00
Location: United Nations, Conference Room (TBD)

This side event during the 4th High-Level Meeting on NCDs and Mental Health and the UN General Assembly in 2025 comes at a critical time: Time is running out to make significant progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and meet the global targets.

In 2010, the World Health Organization developed a package of evidence-based, cost-effective interventions to effectively reduce the burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs). However, 15 years later, implementation and enforcement of the best buys has been disappointing. Progress towards the nine global voluntary targets agreed to in the NCD Global Monitoring Framework is slow and uneven. According to WHO, most countries reported no progress on the alcohol policy best buys since 2010.

This signals the urgent need for action:

to learn from countries that have achieved progress,
to discuss country experiences that face and faced alcohol industry interference,
to confront the growing political and commercial challenges that stall progress, and
to discuss opportunities and the way forward together.

Alcohol is a major obstacle to sustainable development. Alcohol harm negatively affects 15 of 17 SDGs. For instance, alcohol harm causes a loss of 2.6% of GDP on average per country; alcohol remains the leading risk factor for death and disease among 15- to 49-years old; alcohol harms children and youth and other vulnerable groups disproportionately; and population-level alcohol use is projected to increase until 2030 – according to the most recent World Health Organization Global Alcohol Status Report.

Alcohol harm poses a significant and growing burden on people and societies in many regions. In most countries, the NCD burden due to alcohol is increasing. Since 2006, healthy life years lost due to cancer caused by alcohol have increased by 11% worldwide.

The burden of mortality and morbidity from alcohol consumption is highest in low-income countries (LICs) but these are also the countries that reported most frequently insufficient resources devoted to alcohol policy as the most important barrier to alcohol policy development since 2016.

At the same time, only a few notable exception of countries have made progress in responding to their alcohol burden by developing and implementing public health oriented alcohol policy solutions in the last decade. Most countries have made zero progress since 2010 regarding alcohol policy “best buys” implementation. Alcohol industry interference clearly increases as countries attempt to implement the “best buys”, as the WHO Global Alcohol Status Report shows.

Countries are off track to reach the Sustainable Development Goals target of 10% per capita alcohol consumption reduction until 2030. On the contrary, alcohol consumption has increased by 6% since 2010.

Member States of the World Health Organizations have recognized the lack of progress and identified alcohol as public health priority with urgent need to accelerate action. In 2022, Member States unanimously adopted the Global Alcohol Action Plan, with a renewed focus on the most cost-effective, high-impact, and scientifically proven alcohol policy solutions.

In all WHO regions, there are countries that are implementing proven alcohol policy solutions and their results are creating new momentum, showing the potential of alcohol policy for reaching health and development for all.