Exploring The Pursuit of Effective Public Health Policies Through A Trade Lens – Webinar

by HCC

Exploring The Pursuit of Effective Public Health Policies Through A Trade Lens, the third webinar in the HCC Childhood Obesity Prevention Webinar Series, a series that consists of webinars intended to build the capacity of civil society organisations (CSO’s) and other key stakeholders advocating for and implementing childhood obesity prevention policies in the region.

On Thursday, January 30th 2020, the Healthy Caribbean Coalition, with the support of the UWI Open Campus and Sagicor, continued its successful childhood obesity webinar series in support of the of the Civil Society Action Plan 2017-2021: Preventing Childhood Obesity in the Caribbean.

The presenter of the webinar was Mrs. Nicole Foster, HCC Policy Advisor, Attorney-At-Law, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies Cave Hill.

The objective of this webinar was to sensitise public health policy makers to the relevance and implications of international trade rules for formulation and implementation of public health policy at the national level.

Exploring The Pursuit of Effective Public Health Policies Through A Trade Lens Webinar:

  • Explored the flexibilities built into the multilateral trading system to allow states to pursue their public health goals as well as lessons learnt for public health policy making from the WTO tobacco plain packaging case.
  • Commented on the importance of health policy coherence at the multilateral level and strategies to improve this coherence.

Presentation Agenda:

  • Introduction – Sir Trevor Hassell, HCC President
  • The Public Health Exception in International Trade Law
  • The WTO Tobacco Plain Packaging Dispute: Lessons Learnt for Health Policy Making
  • Health policy at the Multilateral Level: The Need for Policy Coherence
  • Moderated Q&A

Associated materials:

NCDs and Trade Policy in the Caribbean HCC NCD Policy Brief ‘NCDs and Trade Policy in the Caribbean. This policy brief highlights the interactions and relationships between trade and NCDs and the role of trade policy actions in support of the prevention and control of this group of diseases in the Caribbean. The brief provides information and case studies on the interconnection and relevance of trade to NCD prevention and control and outlines linkages between trade policies and specific NCD risk factors, specifically tobacco and alcohol use and unhealthy diets. It closes with recommendations for priority policy actions, which can be used as a starting point for civil society led advocacy.

Read/download the NCDs and Trade Policy in the Caribbean Policy Brief here.

Other webinars in this series include:

All webinars are facilitated by UWI Open Campus using Blackboard Collaborate.

If you have any questions or for more information, contact jenna.thompson@healthycaribbean.org.