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Tensions and coalitions: A new trade agreement affects the policy space for nutrition in Vietnam

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Title Tensions and coalitions: A new trade agreement affects the policy space for nutrition in Vietnam
 
Creator Harris, Jody
Hrynick, Tabitha
Thien, Mai Thi My
Huynh, Tuyen
Huynh, Phuong
Nguyen, Phuong
Thow, Anne Marie
 
Subject food systems
nutrition
policies
public health
trade
trade agreements
coalitions
sistemas alimentarios
nutrición
políticas
salud pública
 
Description Global trade has shaped food systems over centuries, but modern trade agreements are hastening these changes and making
them more complex, with implications for public health and nutrition transition. This study aimed to understand the
impact of the 2018 Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) on the policy space
for public health nutrition in Vietnam. We conducted comparative document review and key informant interviews, and our
analysis drew on a framework of policy space and the theory of advocacy coalitions. We identified 10 CPTPP sections with
potential public health nutrition implications; and 50 Vietnamese policies relevant to nutrition having one or more tensions
with one or more CPTPP sections. A majority of policy tensions were in sections of the CPTPP relating to technical barriers
to trade and government procurement; most tensions related to protecting policy-making from vested interests. Different
groups of policy actors hold different beliefs and interests on these issues, and therefore promote different framings and
policy approaches. We identified two advocacy coalitions working very separately on issues affecting nutrition policy space:
a trade coalition holding the policy position that free trade improves nutrition by default; and a nutrition coalition holding
the policy position that nutrition should be explicitly considered in trade policy. The policy space for nutrition in Vietnam
has important potential constraints through written policy, and the trade and nutrition coalitions will need to interact more
regularly and constructively in order to foresee where these tensions will arise in practice, and create plans for their mitigation.
This study adds to global evidence of free trade agreement impacts on nutrition policy space, and we extend previous
work by explaining these actor groupings in the policy space through the theory of advocacy coalitions.
 
Date 2022-10
2022-03-28T14:04:49Z
2022-03-28T14:04:49Z
 
Type Journal Article
 
Identifier Harris, J.; Hrynick, T.; Thien, M.T.M.; Huynh, T.; Huynh, P.; Nguyen, P. Thow, A-M. (2022) Tensions and coalitions: A new trade agreement affects the policy space for nutrition in Vietnam. Food Security, Online first paper, (02 March 2022). ISSN: 1876-4525
1876-4525
https://hdl.handle.net/10568/118472
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-022-01264-1
 
Language en
 
Rights CC-BY-4.0
Open Access
 
Format application/pdf
 
Publisher Springer Science and Business Media LLC
 
Source Food Security