Parliaments and sub-national governments are key to aligning fiscal tools with laws, budgets, and oversight across health, agriculture, and education. Local governance bodies should adapt policies to reflect community food environments and equity priorities. Strengthening social accountability—through citizen monitoring, women’s food rights collectives, and community scorecards—empowers marginalized groups, enhances transparency, builds trust, and ensures fiscal measures advance equitable, locally relevant food system outcomes.

Policies should restrict marketing of unhealthy foods—especially to children—and the promotion of breastmilk substitutes, while implementing mandatory front-of-pack labeling to highlight high-calorie, sugar, fat, and salt content. Regulatory measures must also cover informal and non-prepackaged foods, supported by enforcement tools and consumer education campaigns tailored for low-literacy and rural populations. 

This action focuses on strengthening household purchasing power, particularly for the lowest-income groups. Measures include expanding social protection, creating employment opportunities, implementing living wage legislation, and ensuring access to food safety nets. Together, these actions reduce inequality, improve food affordability, and support healthier, more sustainable diets while enhancing resilience against economic shocks and vulnerabilities.

This can include advertising and marketing of healthy foods (e.g. coupons or loyalty points attached to fruit and vegetables), youth-targeted nutrition campaigns, school-based education, culinary innovation and cooking shows using healthier, sustainable foods, and incentives for food retail to serve healthier options as defaults or at lower cost. Strategies and interventions that increase demand for healthier foods could be funded through taxes on advertising and marketing on unhealthy foods.

Governments should guarantee universal access to safe water as the healthiest drinking option, using low-cost, community-based technologies. Embedding this in public health and food policies reduces reliance on sugary or unsafe alternatives, safeguards health, and ensures water security as a foundation for just food systems. 

In Brazil, basic food basket items are tax-exempt, while unhealthy ultra-processed products face higher taxes. The 2023 Constitutional amendment and Decree No. 11,936/2024 define eligible foods for zero or reduced rates, prioritizing fresh and minimally processed items like rice, milk, fruits, and vegetables. Sugar-sweetened beverages incur higher taxes. These measures, effective 2026, promote healthier diets and uphold the right to adequate food.

Brazil’s Cisterns Programme, established in 2003 and regulated by Law No. 12,873/2013, provides low-cost water access technologies for rural, low-income families and public facilities affected by drought. Prioritizing traditional communities, it requires registration in the Federal Government’s Single Registry. To date, it has benefited 1.2 million families across 1,500 municipalities in 21 states, supporting consumption, farming, and resilience. 

Kenya has developed, and published the Kenya Nutrient Profile Model that classifies foods according to their nutritional composition to support public health policies and interventions. 

Prospera (formerly Oportunidades), a large conditional cash transfer program, is a clear example. It increased household purchasing power by providing cash to low-income families, conditional on school attendance and health checkups. Families also received food support and nutritional supplements, helping to reduce poverty, improve diet diversity, and strengthen food security for the poorest households.

In Rwanda and South Africa, Front-of-pack nutrition labelling and School food policy reform are being piloted to address childhood obesity and ultra-processed food exposure. These efforts include youth co-design and digital advocacy. Many countries in Latin America, notably Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico, have experience in applying food labels and restrictions. 

Switzerland’s True Cost study revealed unhealthy diets cost CHF 17 billion in productivity losses, guiding targeted food system policies.

Launched in 2017, the United Kingdom’s Peas Please initiative, led by The Food Foundation with government and civil society partners, encourages higher vegetable consumption, especially among children and low-income groups. Over 100 organizations have pledged support, distributing 1.1 billion extra vegetable portions. The program promotes taste, affordability, visibility, variety, and sustainability, while engaging schools, communities, and public institutions to make vegetables more accessible and appealing. The United Kingdom 5 A Day initiative encourages people to eat at least five portions of fruit and vegetables daily by providing public guidance, educational campaigns, and resources to make healthy choices easier and more accessible.