BACKGROUND:
Intensified marketing and expanding consumption of ultra-processed foods (UPFs) that contain high sugar, salt, trans-fats and other additives and sugar sweetened beverages in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are associated with rising obesogenic environments and non-communicable diseases1, termed by some an ‘industrial pandemic’ due to its commercial drivers and cross border nature.

METHODS:
This presentation draws on a desk review of online publications post 2013, policy and legal documents and United Nations databases2,3 to examine how far SSA, positioned at an early point of a rising wave, is engaging in the policy, advocacy and diplomacy to control this growing health challenge.

RESULTS:
The findings point to the narrative, agential and structural (trade, political economy) power being used by powerful, often global private actors to advance this expansion of UPFs in SSA. The presentation thus shows how responses underway in SSA are (i) generating and sharing evidence and information as a form of discursive power; (ii) engaging on policy, regulation and other institutional measures as a form of agential power; and (iii) at structural level, using economic policies, taxes and diplomacy to assert structural power for public health. The presentation relates the pace and level of these measures to the pace, level of and equity in public health impacts of UPFs. It notes deficits in institutionalised assessment of health impacts; in policy implementation; in updated law to address new risks; and in consistency of tax and policy measures to incentivise health foods4.

CONCLUSIONS:
While there are important assets, standards, actions and negotiations underway in and from the continent, the deficits call for intensified cross-sectoral and social public health awareness and actions, increased assessment and visibility of UPF risks, local healthy food alternatives, updated laws and diplomacy in multiple global forums to address the political economy and power imbalances that weaken health action.