Around 850 participants gathered in Seoul, South Korea, in October for the third Global Alcohol Policy Conference. Being a meeting place for policymakers, advocates and researchers, the three day program included more than 120 presentations in 32 plenary and concurrent sessions.

If you are in doubt about the alcohol industry’s intention to make young, modern women alcohol consumers, this video clip with Dr. David H. Jernigan may be of interest. Through selected alcohol ads Dr. Jernigan shows how the industry use catchwords as organic, low-carb, natural and diet to attract female drinkers.

Controlling non-communicable diseases and road traffic injuries are key public health issues in Africa, concludes a new report from the World Bank. The report recommends population-based interventions to regulate availability and marketing of alcohol to reduce the number of injuries from road traffic.

Non-drinkers make up nearly half the world’s adult population. A paper presented at the GAPC conference in Seoul suggests what the policy implications of this may be, in particular for developing countries which have remarkable high segments of non-drinkers in their populations.

A new Training Manual to support evidence-based alcohol policy development in low income settings is now available! The manual has been developed on the basis of pilot trainings in seven African countries.

The Swedish NGO umbrella organisation “Forum Syd” has adopted a policy document which points at alcohol as a hindrance to development and a factor which can obstruct work for rights and poverty reduction. 160 NGOs are members of Forum Syd

Alcohol is the leading risk factor for death and disability in Southern sub-Saharan Africa, Eastern Europe and in parts of Latin America. This is one of the conclusions from a new calculation of the Global Burden of Disease. The new study is based on figures from 2010 and these figures are compared to a similar study from 1990.

WHO Regional Office for Africa and FORUT have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to promote evidence-based alcohol policies in Africa. The new agreement defines areas of cooperation between the two parties.

Civil society organizations in Lesotho have come together to form the Alcohol Policy Alliance Lesotho. The new network aims at being a watchdog for and supporter of evidence-based alcohol policies in the country.

“Efforts to prevent non-communicable diseases go against the business interests of powerful economic operators. In my view, this is one of the biggest challenges facing health promotion”, said Dr. Margaret Chan in her opening address to the Health for All conference in Helsinki.