A report (pdf format) about the Johannesburg's conference is available (only in English for now) on the site of the African Consortium. Our requests to know the budget of this conference that was funded by a special grant from the Gates Foundation have remained unanswered. Why is that when the grant funding another tobacco control conference is made public? Could we be shocked by the amount? The report does not provide any numbers or detailed budget about the various past and ongoing projects, nor a serious independent evaluation. While there has never been more money available to promote tobacco control in Africa one can still read that "funding is insufficient". Where is all the money going? Don't ask, don't tell. This practice seems very different from the principles recently stated by Bill Gates himself about transparency, cost-effectivenes assessment and impact evaluation.
IDRC received $5.2 million, WHO-TFI $10 million, ACS-Consortium $7 million, the Bloomberg Initiative invested more about $4 million since 2007: that's $26 million+ ... not including ATCRI's funding by ACS and Cancer Research UK or the funds awarded by the Norwegian Cancer Society or the Union (how much for the CIFCOT 3 conference in Niamey?), etc.
Comments