Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

Tax strategy: tax incidence benchmark or affordability benchmark?

An article by Evan Blecher in the August issue of Tobacco Control that looks interesting. Unfortunately only the abstract is accessible now for free and it would probably require a less technical presentation for the non specialist.

Tobacco Control Journal joins the blogosphere

Tobacco Control Journal opened a blog on July 8. Editor Ruth Malone explains: "The aim of this blog is to stimulate debate, generate ideas and explore new and, at times, controversial ideas. Increasing the opportunities for interaction between readers, authors, and editors is essential to ensuring that the journal remains on the leading edge in today's world of instant and constant digital communication."

Welcome and all our best wishes for this new blog.

Tobacco Control Journal: how much money comes from tobacco and how much is invested in tobacco control?

In the August issue of the journal Tobacco Control, Cynthia Callard looks at how much tobacco companies and governments make out of tobacco products in profits and taxes. She compares this amount to the budgets devoted to tobacco control. What is the situation in your country? it would be great to have a detailed picture/database for Africa.

Africa: IRIN/Plus News maps percent of African budgets spent on health

An interesting initiative. 

Source: Kayser Family Foundation

La BD Sigareth est maintenant disponible sur internet

                                                                      CLIQUEZ ICI !

Zimbabwe: production de tabac en 2010, 104 millions de kgs

Afrique en ligne note que la production est fortement en hausse par rapport aux années précédentes.

Nations Unies: projet de résolution au Conseil Economique et Social pour soutenir la lutte antitabac dans l'intérêt de la santé des enfants et des mamans

Véronique Le Clézio a gracieusement effectué la traduction (ci-dessous) du document original seulement disponible en anglais (en tout cas pour le moment) qui vise à demander aux grouvernements de promouvoir la lutte antitabac dans l'intérêt de la santé infantile et maternelle.

UN Economic and Social Council: Tobacco use and child and maternal health

Here is the text of an interesting draft resolution (pdf format) supporting the promotion of tobacco control.

Bill Gates in Nigeria to check the progress against polio

From this post on the Foundation's blog. There is a very cool and interesting video with Bill Gates narrating. he met with many leaders, including the President, his cabinet, etc. Was tobacco control also mentioned? Even only a few words would certainly help.

Namibia: the process to implement the Tobacco Products Control Act

This article in The Namibian explains the process to implement the Tobacco Products Control Act passed in April.

Quelques précisions sur la conférence CIFCOT 3

Le programme de la conférence et le formulaire de demande de subvention pour y assister sont maintenant disponibles via le site ATCA et les copies postées par nos soins sur google docs. Le formulaire de demande de subvention indique que le nombre de personnes subventionnées via une bourse de participation est limité. Il précise également que les personnes ainsi invitées devront s'engager à assister à toutes les sessions, prendre des notes et partager leur expérience: un blog pour la conférence (voir quelques autres précédents sur la colonne de gauche en bas) semble un outil parfaitement adapté pour atteindre ces objectifs. 

Ways to engage more people (suggested by Thinkpublic)

Thinkpublic listed in this post a few interesting proposals to develop public participation. What about applying them to grants management?

Via InterActu (Hubert Guillaud) in French, merci.

Grants awarded by FCA in 2009

We have completed the list of the grants awarded by FCA in 2009 (with funding from the Norwegian Cancer Society). The total is $80.500 for 10 groups and 9 countries. There are 5 grants of $5000, 3 of $10000, 1 of $7500 and 1 of 8000. As you can see the amounts awarded are much smaller, 10 to 20 times smaller. The amount of one grant awarded by IDRC or Bloomberg is bigger than the whole annual budget for those "small" grants. Two organizations also received funding from Bloomberg and/or IDRC: ATCA (Togo) and VAT (Ghana). 

Compiling the data about the grants awarded by the Bloomberg Initiative and the Gates Foundation (via IDRC-ATSA)

While the process for applying to the the round 8 of the Bloomberg Initiative and the round 1 of the Consortium is starting TCA thought interesting to compile the grants awarded by the Bloomberg Initiative and the Gates Foundation (via IDRC-ATSA). 

Bloomberg + Gates (ATSA) distributed to African organizations $5.130.746: BI allocated $3.457.863 (67,3%) and IDRC-ATSA allocated $1.672.884 (32,6%). 

3 countries collected 51.6% of the total (Nigeria, Kenya, Burkina) and the countries/groups funded both by BI and IDRC collected 86%.

Pablo Eisenberg about big philanthropists

An interesting opinion by Pablo Eisenberg. Any relevance to the way grants have been/are allocated and managed to promote tobacco control in Africa?

Peter Eigen and global transparency

From this blog a post about a presentation by Peter Eigen about global transparency. It also concerns civil society. For instance, in relation to the international conference that will take place in September in Niamey, transparency would require the donors to publish their budget.

Conférence Internationale Francophone Contre le Tabac (CIFCOT III) à Niamey au Niger du 25 au 28 Septembre 2010.

Inoussa Saouna nous fait part de l'information suivante au sujet de la conférence CIFCOT III (sans -pour le moment- le programme préliminaire).

Le programme est maintenant disponible ici.

A look at how the Bloomberg Initiative allocated its funding in Africa since 2007

The Bloomberg Initiative has opened its 8th round of grants. How did they allocate their funding since 2007? TCA has compiled the data. 13 countries have been supported, 2 received 51.6% of the funding: Nigeria (37) and Kenya (14.6). If you add Tanzania, Burkina and Niger you reach 75.4% with those 5 countries. The global amount invested is $3.457.862, around 1 million per year ($508.645 for 2010 at midyear). 

It looks like IDRC funded  in 2009 a project by an ACS intern to update a database started in 2006 of all the grants allocated by the main donors. An interesting tool.

Les projets pour le Consortium sont à envoyer à [email protected] avant le 3 août 2010

Francis Ebeh a précisé l'adresse email et posté un nouveau formulaire sur le site ATCA. La date limite est le 3 août 201 (soit d'ici 2 semaines et 3 jours).

Send your concept notes for the ATCC country grant to [email protected] before August 3, 2010

Francis Ebeh has emailed this precision and posted a form that includes the email address on the ATCA's site. The deadline is August 3, 2010.

Appel à projets pour le Consortium Africain de Lutte Contre le Tabac

L'appel à projets annoncé par le Consortium composé de l'American Cancer Society (ACS), Framework Convention Alliance (FCA), Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK), Union contre la tuberculose (Union), et les coalitions Africaines ATCA et ATCRI a pour date limite le 3 août . Le document diffusé ne précise pas où il convient d'adresser les projets. Une lacune qui sera sans doute rapidement comblée. 

Le Consortium est financé par la Fondation Gates.

African Tobacco Control Consortium: Call for "concept notes"

The African Tobacco Control Consortium announced a call for "concept notes" for national campaigns. The dealine is August 3 but I did not see an address/email where the applicants can apply.

Two interesting articles from the Chronicle of Philanthropy

The Chronicle of Philanthropy points to this article by Andy Beckett in the Guardian about the Gates Foundation and offers this interesting post by Caroline Preston about this new report by the Monitor Institute.

What do we learn from the new information made available on the IDRC site?

We learn that several organizations were funded by IDRC in August and September 2009 for a global amount of CAD 430.300: about 8% of the initial grant awarded by the Gates Foundation since the CAD 150.000 allocated to the University of Cape Town are not part of the ATSA program. Why weren't those grants publicly disclosed at the time? Why such secrecy? 

As there are sometimes several partners involved It is still sometimes unclear how the funds were allocated as this information is not given. Shouldn't all that be shared in due time and in detail? In several instances it looks like IDRC itself is included in the funding. 

Do those new grants impact our analysis about how IDRC allocated the funds received from the Gates Foundation? It does but in a relatively marginal way as most of those grants were not directly awarded to African organizations: when including those grants the amounts awarded represent 36 to 43% of the total depending on the grants that are considered (using the smallest estimate of the global budget at $5.2 million+).

Newly discovered IDRC funded tobacco control projects: FCA part of the "Coordination and collaboration in Africa"

In the first description of this grant (initiated in September 2009 for a 12 months duration), only ATCA appeared and Ebeh Kodjo told us they had been awarded CAD 122.200. In this description, FCA appears. FCA informed us they received CAD 97.000. Since the stated total of the grant is CAD 302.200 where did the rest (83.000) go? to IDRC?

Newly discovered IDRC funded tobacco control projects: FCA funded for Technical Assistance to the ATSA teams (in August 2009)

This grant of CAD 291.100 is listed as starting August 1st 2009 (duration 12 months) but we only found about it now. The recipients appear to be the Global Smokefree Partnership, FCA and Healthbridge. FCA told us they received CAD 145.000 managed via GSP. Path Canada (HealthBridge since 2006) is also mentioned as a recipient. HealthBridge had partnered with IDRC to apply for the phase 2 of the Gates Foundation in July 2009 (ACS was selected).

The grant is to allow the partnership to help 6 country teams (Cameroon, Eritrea, Ghana, Malawi, Sénégal and Zambia). 

Newly discovered IDRC tobacco control projects: CAD 150K for Rapid Response Fund for Opportunities to Advance Tobacco Control

Here is a grant that had not been previously publicly advertised although it's stated starting date is September 24, 2009 (duration 36 months). It is not clear how much goes  eventually to IDRC itself and how much goes to the recipient. Why was the University of Cape Town chosen?  Was the funding from the Gates Foundation grant? The amount is CAD 150K. Kathy Murphy-Everett is a senior researcher with Cape Town University. A study she managed about helping pregnant mothers to quit was apparently funded by IDRC in 2005. We have not been able -yet- to contact her. After a closer look it seems this grant is not part of the ATSA program so its funding did not come from the Gates grant. It remains interesting to know more about it.

Newly discovered: ACS funded by IDRC to study cigarette taxation in Tanzania

This project was funded (CAD 42.2300) on September 25 2009, for one year. The goal is to demonstrate that increased taxation will reduce consumption without reducing tax revenues, in fact increasing tax revenues. Contact: Evan Blecher, a South African economist now with the American Cancer Society.

IDRC: About the Synthesis and Analysis of ATSA Program Data

We had commented earlier about the fact that apparently Marquette University had only received a fraction of the global budget, raising the question of what happened with the rest of the money. 

As this document shows the total budget was CAD 478.500 and Jeffrey Drope has once again confirmed to us that Marquette University had received about CAD 123.551 ($118.300). So what about the remaining CAD354.949 (74% of the budget). Did they go back to IDRC via RITC?

Looking at the tobacco control grants awarded by IDRC

The IDRC site has now a search function that allows to list the projects. We used the 'tobacco" keyword to have a look and we made a few discoveries that we share with you in the next posts.

Appel à projets pour l'Initiative Bloomberg: seules les propositions rédigées en anglais seront acceptées

L'annonce en français est ici mais seules les propositions rédigées en anglais seront acceptées (bas page 2). Date limite de dépôt: 13 août. Liste de projets financés en Afrique (en anglais).

Announcing Round 8 of the Bloomberg Initiative grants program

This information announcing that the Round 8 was now open (deadline August 13) was distributed via various listservers but strangely it is not posted on the site of the Initiative. Apparently the only way to be informed is to register. Why not post this announcement on the site itself?

For a recap of the grants awarded in Africa see here or this map.

Burkina Faso: ACONTA ouvre un site et publie une lettre d'information

ACONTA ouvre un site et publie une lettre d'information (format pdf). 

Charity Navigator: adding transparency and accountability to their key criteria for evaluating non profit organizations

Charity Navigator is adding transparency and accountability to their assessment of non profits.

Resource Center for Tobacco Control in Africa: deadline extended to July 15

This is just a reminder: the deadline for applying to this project funded by the Gates Foundation via WHO has been extended to July 15.

Melodie Tilson (Non Smoker's Rights Association - Canada) about IDRC

This email from Melodie Tilson of the Non Smoker's Rights Association provides an update about the way IDRC dealt with Barbara McDougall's conflict of interest and the demands from the international tobacco control community that she resigns her position as IDRC's Chair.

Dear colleagues:

First of all I would like to thank all of you who responded to the request for help and wrote letters to the IDRC Board of Directors calling for the resignation of the Chair, Barbara McDougall, because she had until March 31 of this year also served on the board of Imperial Tobacco Canada.