Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

Transparency Officers to promote and implement transparency (and communication)

Because transparency needs to be a proactive process and will not happen without people in charge of making it happen. 

Source: opengov/ideascale via googling for transparency officer. 

IDRC: What happened to the $3.505.535 (67% of the Gates Foundation money) that were not allocated to African partners? Is such a repartition acceptable?

How did IDRC use the Gates Foundation's money? Why did African entities only receive 33% of the budget? What happened to the 67% that were not allocated to African partners? 

Comment est-ce que le CRDI a dépensé l'argent de la Fondation Gates? Est-il acceptable que seulement 33% des crédits soient allés aux partenaires Africains?

Qu'a fait le CRDI des 3.505.535 $ qui n'ont pas été attribués aux partenaires Africains? Qu'est-il advenu des 67% du budget non attribués aux partenaires Africains? Pourquoi les partenaires Africains n'ont-ils reçu que 33%?

The Globe and Mail does not want to blow smoke on Barbara McDougall

In an editorial the Toronto's newspaper defends IDRC and Barbara McDougall. Not very convincing and frankly cynical at the end. Readers, including Dr. Cordell Neudorf, Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Public Health Association differ (read below).

More about the Gates Foundation's Grantee Perception Report and the importance of communication and feedback

Along the with the presentation of the Grantee Perception Report on the Foundation's site, you can find on the right side of the page an audio recording of a conference call that was organized between Jeff Raikes and other key leaders of the Foundation and a number of grantees. Jeff Raikes reiterates how important he considers obtaining honest direct feedback:

"It is not always easy for us to get honest feedback. Part of it is that the people we want the feedback from rely on us for funding and that can skew their thinking about providing us with feedback... I want to encourage you not to be shy... We want to hear from you directly..."

How does this process to obtain honest feedback apply to the grants awarded to promote tobacco control in Africa? I don't know if anybody involved in the management of those grants was invited to participate in the conference call. Considering the call made by Jeff Raikes in the direction of grantees to contact him about their concerns let us hope this opportunity will be seized.

The Gates Foundation now has a blog

The blog is called Foundation Notes, The official blog of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As a blog evangelist I can only be delighted and it is certainly one (small) step in the right direction. For now there are no posts about tobacco control but it is a start. Our best wishes for this blog and maybe for many others, targeted to more specific programs including (of course) tobacco control.

Tih Armstrong Ntiabang new Media Advocacy and Communications Coordinator with the African Tobacco Control Consortium

Tih announced his nomination on LinkedIn. All our congratulations and best wishes. This information is not -yet- available on ATCA's or ATCRI's sites. Tih had been one of the African journalists invited to cover COP3 in Durban where he had supported the creation of an African network of journalists interested in tobacco control.

In Tobacco Control Journal: IDRC's story as told by Rachel Kitonyo

In the News Analysis section of the June issue of Tobacco Control, Rachel Kitonyo tells the story of IDRC/ATSA as she sees it.

Maybe she could have said the discovery that Barbara McDougall was a board member of Imperial Tobacco was first published on this blog as our Editor was the one who found about this problematic connexion.

Gates Foundation: Grantees Perception Report: "They say we are inconsistent in our communications, and often unresponsive".

An interesting comment made by Jeff Raikes about a report to the Foundation about what its grantees "really" think. In the context of the McDougall's story we are still waiting for a detailed report from the Foundation about what the termination of the grant meant, how it was managed, what evaluation (if any) will be made and made public (if ever)? 

This report and the way Jeff Raikes is taking action are encouraging. If you would like to submit a question for Jeff Raikes, please email [email protected].

Sources: The Chronicle of Philanthropy and The Business of Giving

Questions/Réponses avec Véronique Le Clézio, récipiendaire de la médaille attribuée spécialement par la Directrice Générale de l'OMS

Cet entretien avec Véronique Le Clézio a été enregistré via Skype. Excusez le mauvais cadrage de ma caméra. Vous pouvez vous rendre directement sur YouTube pour bénéficier d'une image plus large que la colonne centrale du blog. Si vous préférez seulement écouter la version audio, cliquez ci-dessous

Entretien avec Véronique LE CLEZIO

Vous pouvez aussi lire ci-dessous ses réponses aux questions envoyées via email. Encore toutes nos félicitations à Véronique pour cette distinction très spéciale aussi attribuée cette année au Premier Ministre de Turquie.

Questions/Réponses avec Patrick Musavuli, récipiendaire de la médaille 2010 de l'OMS

TCA a interrogé via email les récipiendaires de la médaille de l'OMS pour l'année 2010. Voici les réponses que nous a envoyées Patrick Musavuli.

A question worth asking IDRC's David Malone's: what did IDRC do with the $3.505.535 that were not allocated to African grantees? Is it a good practice? Is it acceptable?

On December 2007, the Gates Foundation awarded $5.274.477 to IDRC to promote tobacco control in Africa. At the very same time, Barbara McDougall who was a Director of Imperial Tobacco Canada was promoted to the position of Chair of the IDRC Board of Governors. Under her chairmanship the African grantees received (according to our calculation) CAD 1.768.942 that is 33.5% of the grant awarded by the Gates Foundation. What happened to the 66.5% that were not allocated to African grantees?

Questions/Réponses avec Pascal Bogui, récipiendaire de la médaille 2010 de l'OMS

TCA a interrogé via email les récipiendaires de la médaille de l'OMS pour l'année 2010. Voici les réponses que nous a envoyées Pascal Bogui. Vous pourrez voir que Pascal ne mâche pas ses mots en ce qui concerne son apprécaition de la situation en Côte d'Ivoire. A ce propos nosu restons toujours sans réponse du représentant de la Côte d'Ivoire à l'ONU quant à sa non transmission de l'intrument de ratification du traité anti-tabac.

Sénégal: podcast avec Djibril Wélé à l'occasion de la Journée Mondiale sans Tabac

L'enregistrement de cette conversation avec Djibril Wélé du Mouvement Anti-Tabac du Sénégal a été effectué via Skype (une première) entre Dakar et Seattle, le 4 juin. Espérons qu'il incitera de nombreux autres activistes à utiliser Skype et l'internet pour produire et partager des podcasts. Il s'agit en effet d'une technologie quasi-gratuite qui vous permet de créer vous-mêmes des émissions de radio et/ou des vidéos: l'abonnement à skype est gratuit, de même que la diffusion sur internet. Call Recorder, le logiciel pour l'enregistrement coûte 20 dollars et produit des documents audio et vidéo (pas de vidéo cette fois-ci car Djibril n'avait pas de caméra sur son ordinateur). Bien entendu les émissions ainsi réalisées peuvent être rediffusées par des stations de radio locales car la qualité du son est excellente.

N'hésitez pas à me contacter si vous voulez participer à un podcast.

ECOUTER la conversation avec Djibril Wélé

(10 minutes)

Gates Foundation CEO: Listening is key to success

Gates Foundation CEO says "listening is key to success" in this article published in USA Today. Is the Foundation listening as far as the management of its grants to promote tobacco control in Africa is concerned?

Tobacco Control in Africa écrit au Ministre des Affaires Etrangères de Côte d'Ivoire

Après avoir interrogé directement la Mission permanente de la Côte d'Ivoire auprès des Nations Unies ainsi que le service des nations Unies chargé de la gestion des opérations de ratification des traités, ce dernier nous a confimé qu'aucune démarche n'avait été entreprise -à ce jour- en ce qui concerne la transmission des instruments de ratification de la Convention Cadre par la Côte d'Ivoire. La mission permanente ne nous a pas (encore?) répondu.

Nous avons donc écrit au Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, M. Jean-Marie KACOU GERVAIS, via un formulaire électronique pour recueillir son avis sur la question. Lire la lettre ci-dessous.