A combination of aggressive alcohol industry activities in a context of economic agreements prioritizing corporate power, weak national alcohol policies, lack of regulatory and enforcement capacity as well as insufficient political has contributed to more than 25% increase in years of life lost to death and disability caused by alcohol since 1990. Alcohol abuse contributes to disease burden, injuries and social problems as well as resulting in some types of cancer and alcohol-related birth defects (although these are often not recognized).

Many countries lack the capacity to track alcohol consumption, its effects and the funding needed to facilitate civil society’s response to the threat. The four major alcohol industries, namely Diageo, SAB Miller/In ABev, Heineken and Carlsberg are currently competing and exploring investment on the African continent. Why Africa? Market investments elsewhere are saturated and Africa offers a potential market for alcohol products. Other factors impacting investment in Africa include political influence, product development, traditional and modern marketing, sports sponsorship, corporate social initiatives and establishment of new allies. Above all, Africa has a youthful population entering into legal drinking age in a few years to come. The ultimate goal of the alcohol industry is to grow alcohol consumption volume in Africa to more than that of the global average. Therefore, alcohol is not ‘An Ordinary Commodity’ but rather a developmental issue that impacts on public health.

Aim and objective: To influence policy makers’ ability to formulate National Alcohol Policies based on evidence based and best practice

Activity: A review of selected articles and published work was undertaken to ascertain current trends of investment in African countries by the alcohol industry – a Zambian case in perspective.

A desk review of selected articles and published works from 2012 to August, 2017 was undertaken which only focused on investment by the alcohol industry in Africa. Zambia was sampled as a specific case. The review focused on establishing the number of African countries with approved and operationalized national alcohol policies already being implemented. It was discovered that 46 countries in Africa had some alcohol control policies in place which mainly focused on pricing, taxation, marketing and physical availability (Ferreira-Borges, Rehm, Dias, Babor, & Parry, 2015). Among the 46 countries, some countries had stronger restriction controls while other did not. Countries like Uganda, Lesotho and Botswana have draft alcohol policies which are not based on public health evidence. Further review of these draft national alcohol policies depicted similar patterns of development and wording. Evidence illustrated that these draft policies were driven by consultants engaged by the alcohol industry. The rationale was to influence policy outcomes which favoured the commercial interest of the industry versus public health interests.

Kenya and currently Malawi are the only two African countries with approved national alcohol policies. The process used to develop the National Alcohol Policy (NAP) in Malawi has been considered as ‘The Best Practice’ for developing national alcohol policies by WHO AFRO-Region office. Malawi adhered to WHO alcohol policy development guidelines which ensured that the process considered public interest and excluded commercial interest of the industry. The WHO AFRO-Regional office has since recommended the ‘Malawi process’ as best evidence practice for developing and adopting national alcohol policies. Malawi is also the second African country after Kenya and the first in Southern Africa which has developed an Alcohol Policy based on evidence and best practice (Kamakanda, 2017). The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide important opportunities to make apparent that implementation of effective alcohol policy will contribute to many of the SDGs. National and regional alcohol policy alliances and the transferring of successes from one country or region to another are increasing. As evidence grows of alcohol industry efforts to block, delay or deflect effective measures, engagement of civil society at all levels and encouragement of community-based initiatives are critical to turning positive public opinion into political will for change.

Zambia: A case in perspective

Since 2012 December, SAB Miller invested $86 million rebuilding a brewery plant in Ndola in the Copperbelt province which was commissioned on 25 December, 2012. The industry purposefully commissioned the plant in December at Christmas time which is peak season for higher consumption of alcohol beverages in Zambia following the festival celebrations of the birth of Christ. Zambia being a Christian nation, this investment was a perfect fit for the benefit and business growth of the alcohol industry (Investing ahead of time.) In 2016 and 2017, SAB Miller introduced a new technology known as Simultaneous Scarification and Fermentation (SSF). This investment within the same town is meant to increase Eagle Large production from 50,000 hectolitres to 150,000 hectolitres and eventually to 200,000 hectolitres by the end of 2017.

Evidence depicts that alcohol consumption is certainly a major risk factor to healthy and productive lives. Considering ‘social determinants’ of health defined as ‘… factors that enable people to live healthy and productive lives’ (Dixey, 2013: 1), these factors include among others, decent housing, access to education employment opportunities nourishing food etc. Alcohol abuse is a deterrent to achieving not only the social determinants of health but also the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. ‘Upstream thinking’ (McKinlay, 1979; cited in Dixey, 2013) is the best social health model to address alcohol related harms. Using up-stream thinking as our social health model, we can consider the three ‘best buyers’ recommendations by the World Health Organization as a way to help reduce alcohol consumption by at least 10% namely:

1. Increasing the price of alcohol
2. Reducing its physical availability
3. Restricting marketing and advertising

Evidence indicates that implementing the three interrelated buyers will certainly reduce harms caused by harmful consumption of alcohol at least by 10%. However, contrary to these indications, growing investment of alcohol on the African continent will not only decrease achievements of the social determinants of health but also exacerbate harms caused by alcohol consumption. In order to achieve the three best buyers, there is need to develop evidence based national alcohol policies based on public health and away from vested interest by the alcohol industry.

• https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=oAaK8anaOKU

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• van Beemen, O. (2015). Synopsis Heineken in Africa. Prometheus, November 2015 Available online: http://www.heinekeninafrica.com/

• SAB Miller Annual Report. (2013). Retrieved from https://www.sabmiller.com/annualreport

• Dixey, R. (Ed.). (2013). Health promotion. Global principles and practice. Wallingford: CABI.

• Ferreira-Borges, C., Rehm, J., Dias, S., Babor, T., & Parry, C. D. (2016). The impact of alcohol consumption on Africa people in 2012: An analysis of burden of disease. Tropical Medicine & International Health, 21(1), 52–60.

• Kamakanda, G. (2017). Retrieved from https://allafrica.com/stories/201708100792.html