Mexico is a country of focus for the Self-Regulation, Drink Driving, and Noncommercial Alcohol initiatives of Global Actions on Harmful Drinking.
Self-Regulation: Beverage alcohol companies are collaborating with the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and ICAP to strengthen cross-industry self-regulation. In countries where self-regulation efforts are already underway but could benefit from further development or refinement, we are working with fellow stakeholders to ensure that cross-industry self-regulation systems operate effectively, reflect international standards of good practice, and are recognized publicly.
Local Global Actions sponsor companies are working with local self-regulatory organization CONAR to strengthen the existing self-regulatory system in Mexico.
Underway since 2010, the project aims to further solidify advertising self-regulation as a cost-efficient and fast system that complements national existing legislation. This is being executed through a number of actions including training of local SRO staff, benchmarking CONAR against “best in class” international SROs, and capacity-building exercises with more established SROs. CONAR is also collaborating directly with beverage alcohol producers in Mexico with the goal of strengthening alcohol beverage self-regulatory rules and guidelines.
Background: The Mexican Council of Advertising Self-Regulation and Ethics (CONAR AC) [http://www.conar.org.mx/] was founded in 1997, following the examples of Spain, Chili, and Brazil. Today, CONAR has nearly 100 corporate and association members across the advertising industry (advertisers, agencies, and the media). CONAR’s Board of Directors (Consejo Directivo) is responsible for handling requests for copy advice based on the opinion of the Advertising Review Committee, handling and resolving complaints for alleged violations of the Code of Ethics and its Annexes, and resolving appeals on decisions. The organization has resolved 98% of cases through its Board of Directors.
Drink Driving: After conducting initial discussions with international partners, ICAP is developing capacity-building modules in preparation for pilot training to be conducted in Mexico in the September through December 2010 time frame. An international, cross-functional senior advisory group is assisting ICAP in the design of the initiative. Training and a launch event will be scheduled for the latter part of 2010. In addition, briefings with senior government officials and industry representatives were conducted in March 2010.
Noncommercial Alcohol: The focus of our work in Mexico (as in all nine countries that are part of this initiative) is to measure the extent and nature of noncommercial alcohol production and consumption, help set the agenda for interventions at national and regional levels, and launch a program of action to reduce problems.
Upon completion of a pilot study, we are now working with local researchers in the implementation of an expanded study.
We will report progress regularly, so please visit this page again soon for ongoing updates on our efforts.