TY - JOUR
T1 - Policy coherence, health and the sustainable development goals: a health impact assessment of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
AU - Ruckert, Arne
AU - Schram, Ashley
AU - Labonte, Ronald
AU - Friel, Sharon
AU - Gleeson, Deborah
AU - Thow, Anne Marie
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - The international community, comprised of national governments, multilateral agencies and civil society organisations, has recently negotiated a set of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 targets to replace the Millennium Development Goals, which expired in 2015. For progress in implementing the SDGs, ensuring policy coherence for sustainable development will be essential. We conducted a health impact assessment to identify potential incoherences between contemporary regional trade agreements (RTAs) and nutrition and health-related SDGs. Our findings suggest that obligations in RTAs may conflict with several of the SDGs. Areas of policy incoherence include the spread of unhealthy commodities, threats to equitable access to essential health services, medicines and vaccines, and reduced government regulatory flexibility. Scenarios for future incoherence are identified, with recommendations for how these can be avoided or mitigated. While recognising that governments have multiple policy objectives that may not always be coherent, we contend that states implementing the SDGs must give greater attention to ensure that binding trade agreements do not undermine the achievement of SDG targets
AB - The international community, comprised of national governments, multilateral agencies and civil society organisations, has recently negotiated a set of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) and 169 targets to replace the Millennium Development Goals, which expired in 2015. For progress in implementing the SDGs, ensuring policy coherence for sustainable development will be essential. We conducted a health impact assessment to identify potential incoherences between contemporary regional trade agreements (RTAs) and nutrition and health-related SDGs. Our findings suggest that obligations in RTAs may conflict with several of the SDGs. Areas of policy incoherence include the spread of unhealthy commodities, threats to equitable access to essential health services, medicines and vaccines, and reduced government regulatory flexibility. Scenarios for future incoherence are identified, with recommendations for how these can be avoided or mitigated. While recognising that governments have multiple policy objectives that may not always be coherent, we contend that states implementing the SDGs must give greater attention to ensure that binding trade agreements do not undermine the achievement of SDG targets
U2 - 10.1080/09581596.2016.1178379
DO - 10.1080/09581596.2016.1178379
M3 - Article
SN - 0958-1596
VL - 27
SP - 86
EP - 96
JO - Critical Public Health
JF - Critical Public Health
IS - 1
ER -