Outrage over UN-Nestlé partnership

During March 2026, announcements were made by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH) here and by Nestlé here, about their “strategic partnership” for the establishment of “the World Food Academy 4 Sustainable Food Systems for Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building”. Following this announcement, an open letter was written and coordinated by Dr Phillip Baker, Associate Professor at the School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Australia. The letter was signed by almost 600 public health experts (including our Director on behalf of First Steps), calling on the UNU-INWEH to end this partnership. The letter describes the conflict of interest created from this partnership, and the ongoing misleading marketing practices used by Nestlé, especially relating to foods for infants and young children, including continuous violation of the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent World Health Assembly resolutions. The letter also calls for stronger safeguards across all United Nations affiliated institutions, to prevent undue corporate influence.

It is still possible for people to add their signatures to the letter here.

This process has been reported in the April 2026 issue of Lancet by Udani Samarasekera, in the following piece: Outrage over UN–Nestlé partnership.