Skip to main content

As 2021 come to a close, the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) reflects on the major milestones and accomplishments of our programs, partners and local organizations in more than 30 countries, advocating for policies that improve health and save lives.

While COVID-19 has continued to disrupt the way of life for most people, our team and advocates have successfully adopted groundbreaking front of package label laws in Argentina and Colombia as well as a lifesaving transit law in Ecuador; adopted new trans fat policies to address cardiovascular health in Bangladesh, India and the Philippines; worked with the Vietnamese government to reconfirm commitments to child drowning prevention efforts; increased budgets in Nigeria to prevent and respond to epidemics; and played a key role in the Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court ruling that prohibiting advertising in schools is constitutional.

GHAI has also developed several new reports and tools, including a report on Big Food’s war on healthy food policies; added an important chapter on stillbirth to our Civil Registration, Vital Statistics and ID Management toolkit; and launched an epidemic preparedness budget advocacy framework at a UN General Assembly side event. We added four new grantees to our Healthy Food Policy Advocacy Fund; launched a new program to prevent overdoses in the U.S.; partnered with the Wildlife Conservation Society to prevent future major viral outbreaks; and joined the global community working to avoid child drowning deaths and applauded the UN General Assembly’s first global resolution on these efforts.

These are only a few accomplishments from 2021. Please check out our featured stories for many more stories from this past year.

Related News

View All News

October 5, 2026

Ethiopia Adopts One of the World's Strongest Nutrient Profile Models to Create Healthier Food Environment

Diet-related noncommunicable diseases are a growing burden in Ethiopia, and the country just gave itself a powerful new tool to fight them. The Ethiopian Nutrient Profile Model (E-NPM), developed under the leadership of the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI) and the Ministry of Health, provides a science-based approach to identify pre-packaged foods and beverages high in sodium, free sugars, saturated fat or trans fat, as well as those containing non-sugar sweeteners or caffeine. Paired with a Front-of-Package Warning Nutrition Labelling (FOPWL) framework informed by national consumer research, the E-NPM gives Ethiopia a strong foundation for policies that can help consumers quickly identify unhealthy products while tackling diet-related noncommunicable diseases.

September 30, 2026

What Twelve Women in Brave Recovery Want Policymakers to Hear

When Gretchen Burns Bergman testified in California in 2014 for a bill that would let organizations distribute naloxone, someone asked why she wanted to support drug use. 

She was thinking about what a mother might need in her medicine cabinet. 

“Mothers are oftentimes the first responder, right?” she told me during Brave Recovery: The Women Impacted. “So why would I not be able to have it in my medicine cabinet?” 

That question has stayed with me. Gretchen knew the moment she was trying to prepare for. She also knew that the people writing the rules did not necessarily see it the way she did. 

September 29, 2026

National Safety Council and the Overdose Prevention Initiative Applaud OSHA’s Workplace Overdose Guidance, Urge Congress to Advance WORK to Save Lives Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 29, 2026)- The National Safety Council (NSC) and the Global Health Advocacy Incubator’s Overdose Prevention Initiative (GHAI) applaud the U.S. Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for giving employers practical guidance on responding to an opioid overdose at work. Released on September 24, “Save a Life Day”, during National Recovery Month, the guidance calls on workplaces to keep opioid overdose reversal medication accessible, prepare workers to use it and call 911 when an overdose occurs.