Table 3.

Recommendations for preventing consumption of unhealthy products

Recommendations	Exemplary quotes
Need for more data and evidence including stakeholder engagement To generate evidence including public opinions on harmful products and taxing on alcohol and SSBs and present findings to policy makers to influence change	‘I will recommend that we get research in these areas, we already have research works in tobacco which is excellent, do we have studies in the area of beverages, and alcoholic areas, no, maybe we have done the research alright, but have we presented it to policy’. (GRA)
Reduce industry and political connections Reduce the interactions at all points and prevent any influence of the industry on policy.	‘I think the argument that they are creating jobs and doing social responsibilities, we should pin them down by saying yes you have created jobs but you have also created a big mess to the citizenry, and the mess should drop you from a strong work force and from making more profits, but they will always come with arguments, and we need to counter argue and ensure that there should not be any interactions with government when it comes to influencing policy’. (CSO)
Invest in public education on and awareness of unhealthy commodities This was recommended as a key strategy with incorporation of religious and community leaders.	‘Some community advocacy programs must be initiated, we have to get some chiefs involved, we know how powerful chiefs are, we also know how powerful the religious community are, the Christians and the Muslims’. (Media)
Reducing the advertisements of harmful products such as SSBs in the media	‘Apart from the tax measures there are other measures such as the ban on advertisements, such as advertise after 8pm to make sure that certain population groups especially the youth, the kids are not exposed to these kind of things so that they don’t get involved at an earlier stage’. (GRA)
Reformulation of sugary beverages to lower the content of sugar	‘Coke which uses a lot of sugar, they reacted with coke zero, and now they are saying that coke has no sugar. Can we push our local manufacturers to come up with their product zeros, where they can say that we are now moving towards health, where health means that their products are without sugar’. (Customs)
Marketing strategy This is based on not taxing healthy foods to increase their uptake and reduce consumption of unhealthy products.	‘In licensing these food outlets such as KFC or Eddys Pizza and others, we should put the health tax component in there in licensing or renewing their license to operate and that could be earmarked for health and it should be graded, for instance if you go to a place that sells natural fruit juice, the health tax should have a base line, and once you go to an outlet where they sell these alcoholic or sweeten beverages, then probably a percentage should be added, and it must be discriminatory in nature’. (MoH)

CSO, civil society organisation; GRA, Ghana Revenue Authortiy; MoH, Ministry of Health; SSB, sugar-sweetened beverage.