Looking Back at 2025: A Year of Advocacy in Action

January

On January 8, 2025, the Government of West Bengal took a landmark step in advancing road safety by officially issuing new safe speed limits across the state based on road type, traffic conditions and proven impact of speed on crash severity.
Brazil authorized a new tax reform law which introduces excise taxes on sugary soft drinks, tobacco and alcohol. It also applies a reduced rate to minimally processed foods and a zero-tax rate to a basic basket of healthy and sustainable items.
Cameroon passed a landmark law modernizing the country’s civil registration system and makes it easier for Cameroonians to obtain registration they need for essential services, enhancing the country’s ability to conduct evidence-based health and development planning while supporting citizens’ civil rights.
We hosted a webinar to launch our revised Communications and Media Advocacy Action Guide, a comprehensive resource for public health advocates to plan and execute impactful communications campaigns.

February

Our CSO Budget Advocacy Academy work in Ethiopia led to Kalu Woreda's government to allocate funds specifically for epidemic preparedness for the very first time.
Overdose Prevention Program Director Libby Jones wrote a New York Times Letter to the Editor shedding light on a critical issue: that for too many Americans, the easiest place to access addiction treatment is behind bars.
Our Road Safety team released The Motorcycle Safety Imperative: An Action Agenda to Address a Growing Public Health and Safety Crisis, outlining policy solutions to reduce deaths, injuries and lost opportunities caused by motorcycle crashes.

March

Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority passed a national standard limiting industrially produced trans-fatty acids to less than 2% of total foods and fats aligning the country with WHO best practices eliminating trans fatty acids from the food supply.
We hosted a webinar to launch our first-ever Research for Advocacy Action Guide, a resource containing the key strategies our teams have used in advocacy campaigns.

April

Twenty-one Members of Parliament from across Africa and Asia convened in Istanbul for a GHAI- and Gavi-supported forum, uniting to advance sustainable immunization financing and strengthen parliamentary advocacy for public health.
Kenya established strong Nutrient Profile Model standards for Healthy Food Policies. The Kenyan Nutrient Profile Model, the first in East Africa, will guide the development of healthy food policies and protect the public from diet-related noncommunicable diseases.
We celebrated the graduation of the first CSO Budget Advocacy Academy cohort, which has yielded significant results, including the launch of the One-Health Strategic Plan 2025-2029 in Kenya.

May

We delivered remarks at the United Nations Multistakeholder Hearing on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) and the Promotion of Mental Health and Well-Being.
Jamaica’s Cabinet approved and officially adopted the National School Nutrition Policy, marking a major step toward healthier schools following five years of advocacy. The policy will support 500,000 students by limiting sugary drinks and ultra-processed foods in schools while boosting nutrition education.
We launched One Shot, Long Life! a new podcast sharing candid stories from advocates, policymakers and health experts working to secure domestic immunization funding across Africa and Asia.

June

The Vietnamese Government took an important step toward protecting public health with the passage of its first tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs), with 8% starting in 2027, through the amended Excise Tax Law. This policy resulted from years of coordinated advocacy with local partners who built evidence, educated media and policymakers and countered industry interference.
Overdose Prevention Program Director Libby Jones published a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal in response to their coverage of addiction treatment in the Chesterfield County, Virginia correctional facility and joined the Avoiding the Addiction Affliction podcast to talk about what it means to give a voice to the voiceless: from expanding access to opioid use disorder treatment in jails and prisons, to breaking down stigma and removing federal barriers that prevent providers from offering care.
We launched our new Legal Action Guide in a webinar attended by more than 100 partners and collaborators from around the globe. This Guide is a companion to GHAI’s Advocacy Action Guide and is designed to highlight step-by-step approaches to key legal strategies, coupled with more than a dozen case studies to illustrate how these strategies are successfully activated.

July

Due to local government leadership and advocacy support, Kano State in Nigeria has more than doubled its budget allocation for noncommunicable diseases, securing approximately $380,000 for the 2025-26 fiscal year—a remarkable 200 percent increase from the previous allocation.

August

Veronica Schoj, Vice President of GHAI’s Food and Nutrition program, represented GHAI alongside WHO and Jordan’s Ministry of Health at a high-level event supporting the government’s leadership in advancing food policies to reduce obesity, malnutrition and noncommunicable diseases.

September

Our Data for Health team prepared remarks for the United Nations High-Level Meeting to Commemorate the 30th Anniversary of the 4th World Conference on Women (Beijing+30).
In recognition of National Recovery Month, our Overdose Prevention team joined Dream.org for a Congressional Hill Day to amplify community advocates and promote policies that address the overdose crisis, strengthen reentry supports, and ensure continuity of care within the criminal justice system.
The Government of Uttar Pradesh and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur established a partnership to address one of the state’s biggest public safety challenges—road crashes. By signing a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the government committed to adopting the  Safe System Approach, an evidence-based and proven global model effective in saving lives on roads.
We launched the second cohort of the Advocacy Accelerator to strengthen CSO advocacy for sustainable domestic budget allocation across key public health areas including health security, NCDs, road safety and drowning prevention.

October

Vietnam has strengthened its commitment to child drowning prevention with the Prime Minister’s approval of a comprehensive Survival Swimming Program, including a standardized 16-lesson curriculum for use in schools that addresses the real dangers children face, which will reach over 21 million students nationwide.
Ceará, Brazil passed a state-wide law prohibiting the provision, sale and advertising of ultra-processed products in all schools. Nearly 1.8 million children and adolescents will benefit from healthier school food environments.
Our Road Safety team presented an amicus brief before the Mexican Supreme Court that prompted a landmark ruling upholding key provisions on insurance and penalties in Puebla’s Road Safety Law, reinforcing a 2020 Constitutional Amendment confirming the right to mobility and road safety.

November

The government of Kano State, Nigeria, officially adopted the health security accountability framework, following advocacy efforts by CSO Academy members from Network for Health Equity and Development (NHED). This framework tracks epidemic preparedness and response allocations and releases 54 across the state.
In a major move toward tackling this growing public health concern in the state of Karnataka, India, we partnered with All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Rishikesh and the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) to convene a multi-stakeholder workshop in Bangalore, India.

December

President Trump signed the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Reauthorization Act of 2025 into law. This bill strengthens community-level efforts to end the overdose crisis by reauthorizing grant programs that address substance use disorders, overdose and mental health. This action strengthens lifesaving systems that provide vital treatment access and support long-term recovery across the United States for the nearly 50 million people living with substance use disorder.
We celebrated a major milestone in Viet Nam as CTFK received its second Merit Award at the Fifth International Conference on Cooperation with NGOs, recognizing our contributions to the country’s sustainable development.