22 May 2008
The Global Alcohol Policy Alliance (GAPA) chairman Derek Rutherford welcomed the passage of a resolution on alcohol policy at the World Health Assembly on Thursday morning. The resolution requests the Director-General to prepare a draft global strategy to reduce harmful use of alcohol.

"We are pleased that at last WHO has responded to the epidemic of alcohol problems that is increasing with growing alcohol consumption in all parts of the world. GAPA calls on WHO to develop a strong, evidence based global strategy to reduce these problems. We particularly note that the resolution properly distinguishes the roles of commercial and other participants in the development of the strategy and rejects WHO collaboration with the alcoholic beverage industry. GAPA looks forward to working with WHO and other civil society organisations in the important task before us."

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Background.
The starting point was resolution EB122.R2 (available on the WHO web site: http://www.who.int/gb/e/e_eb122.html.

The final result required one small, but important, ammendment. Paragraph 2(4) now reads: "to collaborate and consult with Member States, as well as consult with intergovernmental organizations, health professionals, nongovernmental organizations and economic operators on ways they could contribute to reducing harmful use of alcohol."

The debate was long, with 36 countries contributing. Most of the interventions thanked the WHO DG and the Secretariate for the good work done, and appreciated the report presented to the Assembly (A61/13 available here:
http://www.who.int/gb/e/e_wha61.html

The resolution passed at the Assembly is the result of a long process, including a resolution in 2005, discussions without conclusion during the WH60 last year, informal consultation by WHO with Member States and the passing of a draft resolution at the WHO Executive Board in January this year. Prior to the debate at the Assembly there were many among countries with strong interests in the issue. The suspense lasted until the very end. New Zealand offered the amendment  to contribute to reaching consensus. In addition Thailand presented a very strong intervention. Some other ammendments first proposed by Greece and Pallau were later withdrawn in the spirit of consensus. Ecuador accepted the amendment of behalf of the GRULAC (Group of Latin American and Caribbean Countries), as they considered it a clarification of the English translation from the Spanish. Sri Lanka, on behalf of SEARO-countries, proposed having a " world no acohol day", but did not offer that as an ammendment. Dr. Alwan stated in his comment that the proposal had been "duly noted."

We think we this is a very good result. WHO now has a mandate to continue working on the alcohol issue and will develop a draft "Global Strategy to present to the World Health Assembly in May 2010, with prior discussion at the Excecutive Board meeting in Januar of the same year.

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also:

Statement issued today by IFMSA (International Federation of Medical Students' Associations, (download pdf 43kb)