A recent scandal involving Kenya’s Ministry of Health and British American Tobacco (BAT) Kenya has underscored the alarming precarity and complicity of governments in the Global South to seek problematic corporate partnerships Allegedly, Kenyan health officials sought to partner with a tobacco giant responsible for around 12,000 preventable deaths each year in an anti-tobacco campaign targeting transport sector workers. This action flagrantly violates Kenya’s international commitments, specifically the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which categorically prohibits such partnerships under Principle 1 because of the “irreconcilable conflict between the tobacco industry’s interests and public health policy interests” and calls on State parties to “protect the formulation and implementation of public health policies for tobacco control from the tobacco industry.” This incident highlights how limited resources, weak regulatory capacity, and mounting debt leave many governments exposed to corporate interests that threaten public health and human rights. The case starkly illustrates how corporate capture can drive states to abandon their fundamental duties, undermining efforts to protect human rights even when international treaties clearly set out state obligations. Evidence also suggests BAT Kenya has been actively exploiting loopholes and manipulating governmental policies to expand its market, despite regulatory setbacks. From introducing and marketing harmful nicotine products to engaging in alleged tax avoidance of approximately $ 28 million USD. BAT’s strategies reveal a pattern of undermining public health and depriving Kenya of vital revenue needed to uphold social and economic rights.

These examples reveal a deeper crisis: corporate power is fuelling inequality. Without strong enforcement, multinational corporations can dominate policy, eroding democratic institutions and human rights protections. Ultimately, the gap between international principles and reality shows how fragile state protections are under the weight of corporate power in the Global South, often at the expense of public health and the rights of ordinary people.

The Anatomy of Corporate Capture in Public Health

Corporate capture, as defined by ESCR-Net, describes how powerful companies systematically exert undue influence over public institutions, regulatory frameworks, and decision-making to serve private interests at the expense of the public good.

For instance, in the pharmaceutical industry, Big Pharma’s refusal to support COVID-19 vaccine patent waivers exposed a direct conflict between profit motives and the urgent need to secure the right to health worldwide. Despite international calls for equitable vaccine distribution, leading corporations prioritized intellectual property and revenues, effectively limiting millions’ access to life-saving vaccines in Global South countries.

Similarly, the alcohol industry has wielded significant power to resist life-saving public health policies. In South Africa, major alcohol producers were at the center of efforts to block advertising restrictions and lobby against higher excise taxes, even amidst overwhelming evidence of alcohol’s role in traffic fatalities, gender-based violence, and chronic disease. These interventions prioritized industry profits while undermining national public health objectives.

Corporate capture rarely ends at straightforward lobbying. Multinationals may co-opt community decision-making spaces, finance public relations campaigns to shape narratives, and even intervene in judicial or legislative processes to advance their interests.

These strategies have profound consequences: regulatory watchdogs can become compromised, public officials may face conflicts of interest, and government priorities can shift away from public health or environmental sustainability toward the preferences of industry. As a result, efforts to secure human rights, reduce inequality, and strengthen democratic accountability are routinely undermined. The Global South remains particularly vulnerable, as limited state resources and high debt levels provide fertile ground for corporate power to shape policy outcomes, frequently at the expense of historically oppressed populations and the environment.

Strangled by Debt, Abandoned by Aid: Global South Countries at a Crossroads

The intensifying global debt crisis, combined with deep cuts to multilateral aid, has left many countries in the Global South increasingly vulnerable to corporate capture.

This has been made worse by the abrupt suspension and reduction of US and other donor funding for HIV and other public health programs have severely disrupted services, especially for key populations. Diminishing support from initiatives like PEPFAR and USAID leaves governments scrambling to plug gaps, often turning to private actors, including pharmaceutical companies, to fill critical roles. The decline in international health aid, combined with austerity, leaves national health systems underfunded and more open to “public-private partnerships” that let transnational corporations steer health policy toward their own interests, even when this comes at the expense of public health safeguards.

With the overall decline in official development assistance (ODA), compounded by domestic austerity measures due to debt servicing, many countries have fewer genuine alternatives to these corporate-led “solutions.” Without strong public funding, oversight, and regulatory capacity, states become dependent on the very multinational corporations and financiers actors whose interests may run counter to broader human rights and environmental well-being.

Kenya offers a stark example of how these forces work. Government spending on health care in Kenya is declining and currently wavers between 4.7% and 7% of the annual national budget. This funding level is far from the Abuja Declaration, which calls for a minimum of 15% of national budgets spent on health care to meet the goal of achieving universal health care. The country now spends 27% of its budget on debt service, far more than what goes to healthcare. In the latest fiscal year, Kenya allocated Sh1.1 trillion for interest payments, dwarfing the Sh139 billion for healthcare. At the same time, Kenya is a country where nearly half of ODA goes to health services; the abrupt halt in USAID funding has caused a social crisis. According to Willow Health Media, “The termination has resulted in the cancellation of about 80 projects comprising 57 major development initiatives and 23 administrative ones… with total funding loss to $324 million—with the major projects accounting for $322 million.”

This fiscal constraint creates conditions that make corporate partnerships appear attractive, even when they fundamentally contradict public health objectives. Patients seeking chronic and critical illness services in Kenya’s public hospitals are now being forced to pay out of pocket due to the ongoing government financial crisis. Medical debt has become a significant issue, with discharged patients sometimes detained in hospitals until relatives can fundraise to clear bills.

Feminist analysis reveals how this debt-driven austerity disproportionately impacts women and historically oppressed communities, who rely most heavily on public services and bear the greatest burden of care work when these services are underfunded. Women in the Global South are also particularly vulnerable to the impacts of tobacco marketing, environmental degradation, and irresponsible corporate practices in the health sector.

UNGPs: The State Duty to Protect and The Corporate Responsibility to Respect

Kenya’s recent attempt to partner with British American Tobacco represents a clear failure of under the first pillar of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

The increasing normalization of corporate involvement in policymaking is a fundamental threat to democratic sovereignty. When transnational corporations are able to dictate public health policy, the basic premise of democratic governance is eroded. Although the UNGPs provide valuable advocacy tools, their voluntary and state-centric design cannot sufficiently counter the structural power imbalances that allow corporations to undermine democratic processes.

Feminist scholars have further critiqued these limitations, questioning whether frameworks rooted in capitalist paradigms can truly address systemic corporate power. Such analyses highlight that “multi-stakeholder governance” and “stakeholder engagement” often end up legitimizing corporate influence while marginalizing affected communities.

These inadequacies have fuelled urgent calls, especially Global South countries, for a binding UN Treaty on Business and Human Rights. The treaty process acknowledges that “the activities of transnationally operating companies are not sufficiently regulated under human rights law.” Kenya’s tobacco controversy is a powerful example of why enforceable commitments matter: the current draft treaty would require states to ensure companies respect human rights and conduct impact assessments, and would implement stronger liability and remedy mechanisms—critical gaps in the UNGPs’ framework.

However, the treaty process faces resistance from many Global North governments and corporations, who favor the flexibility of voluntary guidelines over binding obligations. This opposition starkly reveals the underlying power asymmetries that perpetuate corporate capture and undermine meaningful accountability on a global scale.

A Global South feminist approach calls for structural change, not just piecemeal fixes so as to address these systemic vulnerabilities. At the heart of this transformation are debt justice initiatives that would release crucial fiscal space for public services like healthcare and education. The urgency is underscored by the staggering sums lost each year to corporate tax avoidance—over $348 billion globally, including $28 million allegedly evaded by BAT Kenya.

Tackling corporate capture requires more than legal reforms; it demands a rebalancing of power. Participatory democracy offers a practical and proven avenue, empowering communities to play a direct role in decision-making and moving beyond traditional forms of representation. Studies show that such community-driven approaches build trust in government, foster civic leadership, and ensure that policies reflect the needs of those most affected.

Supporting transformation means backing organizations and networks that challenge corporate power and advance accountability. Global alliances such as Feminists for a Binding Treaty, ESCR-Net, PODER, and Corporate Accountability, along with local groups like the Kenya Tobacco Control Alliance and Coffee Watch in Mexico, show how coordinated activism can expose abuses. These include from stopping controversial government-corporate partnerships to uncovering exploitative labor and environmental practices by multinational corporations.

Conclusion

The stakes could not be higher. As corporate capture spreads globally under the guise of “public-private partnerships” and “multi-stakeholder governance,” the Kenyan case serves as both warning and opportunity. It demonstrates the urgent need for frameworks that can actually constrain corporate power rather than legitimizing it. Most fundamentally, it reveals that defending human rights in an era of corporate capture requires nothing less than reclaiming democratic governance itself.

Only by understanding corporate capture as a systemic feature of the current global order, rather than isolated policy failures, can we begin to build alternatives that truly prioritize human dignity over corporate profit. The BAT Kenya and Ministry of Health partnership may not have gone ahead, but the conditions that could have made it possible remain. Transforming those conditions requires bold, feminist, and decolonial visions that center community wellbeing over corporate wealth. Only in this way will it be possible to move beyond the limits of current human rights frameworks toward transformative accountability that addresses the root causes of corporate capture.