Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

Illicit cigarette brand top seller in South Africa

South Africa has become the first country in the world with an illegal cigarette brand as a top seller! Illegal cigarettes are preferred for their low prices in South Africa, with the cigarette brand RG retailing at the lowest price of 10 Rand. RG has overtaken all legal brands including the preffered cigarette brand in the country Peter Stuyvesant, giving South Africa the dubious honor of being the first country in the world with an illegal cigarette brand as its top seller.

2013/2014 IDRC grant to CRES to improve taxation policies in West Africa

IDRC provided CRES with a $378 grant in June 2013 to promote improving the taxation of tobacco products in West Africa. A one day workshop was organized in February 2014  in Ivory Coast, bringing together parliamentarians from 14 of the 15 countries of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). More infos on the site of CRES  about this meeting, but only in French. To get the reports country by country, click on 'documents'.

2013/2014 IDRC grant about taxation and smuggling in Eritrea

This $79K grant aims at assessing the impact of tobacco taxation, smuggling, and street vending on consumption, and its implication for tobacco control in Eritrea.

Chronology of Bloomberg Initiative grants for African Countries 2007-2013

The total of the grants allocated in 7 years (2007-2013) by the Bloomberg Initiative as of December 22, 2013 amounts to $ 6.313.409. The average is $901.915 per year.

2 year CTFK's grant for 7 Francophone countries (2014-2015)

Revisiting the grants database we discover this $300.000 grant awarded in July 2013 to the Association pour la défense des Droits des Consommateurs involving 7 countries: Chad, Niger, Burkina, Cote D’Ivoire, Guinea, Mauritania, and Burundi.

New CEO for the Gates Foundation on May 2014

Susan Desmond Hellman will replace Jeff Raikes as CEO of the Gates Foundation on May 2014. Here is the story of how she and her husband divested of the Altria stock that used to be in their portfolio. Reading other recent press releases I noticed the departure of Kate James, the Chief Communications Officer. 

Africa's aid mess

Article by author Paul Theroux for Barron's.

How cigarettes are taxed

Interesting map posted on the CTCA site

Looking for data about smoking prevalence in African countries

You can try to search the interactive map provided by the CDC but you'll find almost nothing for African countries. The few youth surveys are quite old.
Why such a lack of very basic data? 
Apparently there was a youth survey in various sub-sahara countries in 2008, as reported on my the very blog I once started about prevalence but the links don't work any longer :(

Article about the present situation in Senegal

From IRINnews this detailed article about the present situation in Senegal with a strong interference of the tobacco industry to tamper with the new tobacco control law still in discussion.

Thanguy NZUE OBAME about the new Tobacco Control Law in Gabon

Below is the text (in French) of a cyber-interview with Thanguy NZUE OBAME, about the adoption of a Tobacco Control law in Gabon. It provides additional details to our previous post (in English only). Very interestingly article 48 of this law proposes to award 2% of the tobacco taxes to fund tobacco control activities. If adequately implemented such a budget would be extremely valuable and effective (see question 8) as most of the time no regular funding is provided. The choice of 2% is an improvement upon the goal mentioned (never implemented) in the article 6 of the 1988 European Charter Against Tobacco, "impose a levy of at least 1% of of tobacco cotx revenue to fund specific tobacco control and health promotion activities".

Looking for bloggers in Uganda

The Textochange group in Kampala is looking for bloggers to blog about tobacco control. An interesting initiative but they don't tell if there is any financial incentive/compensation for the bloggers to blog?

Study about a 2007 tobacco control public opinion survey in Kenya

The journal Tobacco Control publishes in his November 2013 issue a research paper about a poll conducted in Kenya in 2007 whose results helped to advocate for a new tobacco control law.

CTCA publishes report about tobacco industry activities in 14 African countries

CTCA's pdf report, Tobacco Industry Monitoring, Regional Report for Africa contains a detailed presentation of the industry tactics in 14 countries. it was published in August (sorry for the delay in telling you about it). Two small questions: 1. is a French version planned (could be a summary) 2. Who took all the pictures (many from Burkina Faso)? it would be interesting to make them available separately (with the due credits).

American Cancer Society Scientific Report warns about worsening smoking epidemic in Africa

From a note posted on the Global Tobacco control Forum on Facebook (are you a member?) by Evan Blecher that pointed to the November 11 ACS press release (also below). Unfortunately the link to the full report did not work but it will certainly be fixed asap. Just so you know if you try right away. You can find the document (Google doc) here

Swaziland: new tobacco control act adopted

From the WHO's Framework Convention site>. The Times of Swaziland gives some precisions.

Children working in tobacco fields in the US

An investigation about how children work in tobacco fields in the US in The Nation.

WHO FCTC reporting and implementation database

Here allows you to read the implementation reports, county by country.

Ibrahim Index of African Governance

"Best and worst" countries according to the Ibrahim Index of African Governance.

Visit Tobacco Control Nigeria on Facebook

Pressing the Nigeria's Ministers to sign the tobacco control law with an active advocacy campaign on Facebook, plenty of pictures, a petition, but do they listen? I wonder to what extent the Gates Foundation that works extensively in Nigeria in other areas could not use this network to help advocate for this law? It would be in line (if I understand it correctly) with the new organization of the Foundation as described by Jeff Raikes in a recent interview with Tom Paulson: "It was an opportunity for us to drive a closer working relationship between the global health and global development activities. One way to explain this is by anecdote.

In December 2010, I was down south in Ethiopia in a primary health care center. The obvious health interventions offered at the clinic were posted on the wall. Some were the obvious ones like child immunization and support for HIV.

But they also posted about personal and environmental hygiene, about water and sanitation and nutrition. They even had a model garden outside.

I realized at that moment how important it was for us to reorganize in a way that pulled all of our programs together to support families (as opposed to isolated interventions). That was the driving force behind the reorganization."

Veteran's Day: what about looking back at the most recent battles in the tobacco war and discussing about the future?

As you can see from the most recent posts I have started to look at what happened in the past, especially since 2007/2008 when philanthropists Bloomberg and Gates provided millions of dollars that changed the face of tobacco control and I am wondering about what's next, especially, very concretely what is the Gates Foundation going to decide as they look for an organization to promote tobacco control in Africa for the next 3 years. I have a feeling of déja vu and fait accompli while at the very same time hoping for a change, a new practice in the process of grant management, engaging the whole community, including potential 'dissenters'. Making this wish I am only taking the word of CEO Jeff Raikes when he described his '3Ts priorities' in the speech he gave in Belfast in June 2012.
I have a few ideas about encouraging everybody to pitch in, share their personal evaluation of what happened since 2007/08 and offer suggestions/wishes for the next 3 years. Stay tuned.

Jeff Raikes about Philanthropy, Technology, Transparency and Teamwork.

Here is the whole text of the conference given by Jeff Raikes on June 5, 2012. Read it all and especially the parts at the end devoted to Transparency and Teamwork. I have reproduced the text below for 'safekeeping' because my experience has been that sometimes links were broken, texts were deleted and the original material was lost. Yes this also happened on the website of the Gates Foundation and for information about the tobacco control grants. 

 

Jeff Raikes: Technology, Transparency and Teamwork.

Surfing on line on the theme of transparency in relation with the ongoing selection process at the Gates Foundation I found this conference given in June 2012 in Belfast by Jeff Raikes (the soon to be leaving CEO of the Gates Foundation). As often he talks eloquently about the need for transparency and also says:“We need to go beyond grantees and partners, to the critics and dissenters of our approaches.” As a dissenter I cannot agree more but is such an attitude implemented now? What about testing it for real in the decision making of the Foundation of how the promotion of tobacco control in Africa should be organized? See below for a more recent comment by Jeff Raikes from an interview published on Humanosphere.

About the new tobacco control law in Gabon

Gabonese advocate Thanguy NZUE OBAME has shared with us copies of the new tobacco control law, Loi 006/2013 enacted on August 21 2013, about the new tobacco control policies in Gabon ('portant instauration des mesures antitabac en République Gabonaise"). Below are a few immediate comments but a more complete analysis will take more time. Here is the post published on the FCTC site on November 13.

Let us do the numbers for the last seven years (2007-2013)

As it's grey and cold today I have decided to look at the relevant numbers for the grants awarded to promote tobacco control in Africa during the period 2007 to November 2013. I mostly computed the data for the grants awarded by CTFK for the Bloomberg Initiative, comparing them with the grants awarded by the Gates Foundation.

The African Tobacco Control Consortium

From the ACS page devoted to the Consortium. What's happening now?

How much money does ANCE (Togo) need?

Reading an updated version (9/23/2013) of an interview with the Executive Director of the Alliance Nationale des Consommateurs et de l'Environnement (ANCE), Mr Ebeh Kodjo, who is also Secretary of ATCA, and an FCA board member (until december 31, 2013) the main problem seems to be funding. Nothing new? Except that ANCE has been one of the groups that received significant funding (the last CTFK grant awarded in Dec 2012 was for $152K+ while 54K had been awarded in January 2012) so how much is now needed, what happened to the previous grants, is any detailed budget explaining where the money went-goes available? Those questions are especially important when the Gates Foundation is looking for the next organization to coordinate their tobacco control efforts in Africa and ATCA could be a candidate.

The Gates Foundation looks for an organization to support and strengthen tobacco control in Africa

This ad was posted on the site of the Center for Tobacco Control in Africa (based in Kampala). The deadline to apply is today!  November 8!  What organizations are going to apply? to serve as a strategic grant maker, capacity builder, and effectively coordinate with others working in tobacco control on the continent? Several existing (competing) groups are presently trying to do that. Strangely, once again, despite claiming to engage the whole continent the proposal is in fact much more narrow:The grantee organization will support work in 5-10 countries in Africa .
Another interesting (perplexing?) remark is Africa Tobacco control expertise is preferred but not required as a tobacco control expert could be hired as part of the investment.
What do you think? Is there any chance of a different organizing strategy being funded or are we going to see more of the same?
Duration of grant: 3 years, starting in 2014.
No budget amount if mentioned nor any mention of the capacity to operate in different languages (except English) despite the fact that the lack of French fluency has been, still is a handicap for all leading groups.

 

Monitoring team thwarts tobacco industry interference in Uganda (from FCTC.org)

ATCA's Patrick Musavuli discusses tobacco industry monitoring. (c) Tih Ntiabang

From FCTC.org

A specially trained team of tobacco control advocates has prevented the tobacco industry from getting a suggested tobacco tax increase in Uganda reduced.

The Ministry of Finance had proposed increasing Uganda’s excise tax duty on cigarettes by 45.5 percent in the 2013-14 budget. When the matter was discussed in Parliament’s Finance Committee, the industry submitted a petition calling for an increase of just 11.4 percent.

Tobacco Control Journalism Fellowship in Nigeria funded by CTFK

Here is one announcement but where are the articles? Where is the beef? There are no details about the $ amount of each award and there is no mention (apparently) of any radio project while radio broadcast remains a dominant medium in Africa. Another copycat reprint of the press release that does not provide any additional information.

What audience for the nosmoke revolution clips?

Visiting the youtube channel of the Nosmoke Revolution advocacy campaign one can see that the most viewed of the 9 videos (apparently) is the spot by model LISSA (Mame Diarra THIAM) with 12000+ views (see her on FB). All the other videos have on average a few hundreds views but for the rappers with a few thousands (but on 2 months instead of only one)

Additional $65,925 grant for Prevenir Association in Senegal: No Smoke Revolution!

The Prevenir Association (?) was awarded a one year grant of $65,925 in August, to 'galvanize support for the adoption of a FCTC-compliant TC bill in Senegal. They had received a two months $31,241 grant in May. We found a FaceBook account for Prevenir but the main source of information remains LISTAB (in French)although the most recent post as of today is more than two months old (end of August 2013). Maybe because the updating now takes place on their FaceBook page, with details about their most recent campaign, NoSmoke Revolution (on FaceBook as well) and advocacy efforts.

Additional grant ($67,942) for Nigeria

The Bllomber Initiative/CTFK allocated $67,942 to the Tobacco Control Foundation of Nigeria for advocacy for passage and presidential assent of the national tobacco control bill (NTCB) in Nigeria. This comes in supplement of previous 2013 grants.

$ 84,962 for an Anglophone Lawyers Seminar in Addis Ababa

Recent grant noted on the Bloomberg Initiative website: $84,962 for The Ethiopian Public Health Association (EPHA) to support a 5-day Seminar for English-speaking African lawyers in Addis Ababa on the FCTC and the drafting and implementation of effective tobacco control legislation.

Gates Foundation scores 'very poor' on the transparency index

From the Seattle based Humanosphere blog.

Regional Workshop on Policy Coordination for Tobacco Control to Address TC Coordination Challenges 16-18 October 2013 Kigali

The countries that  participated are: Ethiopia, Eritrea, Guinea, Guinea Equatorial, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritius, Mozambique, Rwanda, Seychelles, Swaziland, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. My question is: how were those countries selected? why? by whom? How much did the workshop cost? What about a cybermeeting instead of moving all those people? Information published by CTCA

Nigeria: $29,886 for implementing the prohibition of smoking in pulic places in Ekiti State

This one year grant awarded in July 2013, complements several previous grants by the Bloomberg Initiative.

Madagascar: grant awarded by the Bloomberg Initiative (2012-2015): $177,121

$177,121 awarded to the Office National de Lutte Antitabac to support the adoption of smoke-free public and workplaces by the Bloomberg Initiative. it's almost twice the amount of the previous grant that was devoted to graphic warnings. Here is a report about a recent workshop probably financed by this grant (in French). Here a video posted on YouTube  in Malagasy (32 views).

List of African Countries Literacy Rates

▲	Country	Literacy Rate
1.	Zimbabwe	90.70
2.	Equatorial Guinea	87.00
3.	South Africa	86.40
4.	Kenya	85.10
5.	Namibia	85.00
6.	Sao Tome and Principe	84.90
7.	Lesotho	84.80
8.	Mauritius	84.40
9.	Congo, Republic of the	83.80
10.	Libya	82.60
11.	Swaziland	81.60
12.	Botswana	81.20
13.	Zambia	80.60
14.	Cape Verde	76.60
15.	Tunisia	74.30
16.	Egypt	71.40
17.	Rwanda	70.40
18.	Algeria	69.90
19.	Tanzania	69.40
20.	Madagascar	68.90
21.	Nigeria	68.00
22.	Cameroon	67.90
23.	Djibouti	67.90
24.	Angola	67.40
25.	Congo, Democratic Republic of the	67.20
26.	Uganda	66.80
27.	Gabon	63.20
28.	Malawi	62.70
29.	Sudan	61.10
30.	Togo	60.90
31.	Burundi	59.30
32.	Eritrea	58.60
33.	Ghana	57.90
34.	Liberia	57.50
35.	Comoros	56.50
36.	Morocco	52.30
37.	Mauritania	51.20
38.	Cote d'Ivoire	48.70
39.	Central African Republic	48.60
40.	Mozambique	47.80
41.	Mali	46.40
42.	Ethiopia	42.70
43.	Guinea-Bissau	42.40
44.	Gambia, The	40.10
45.	Senegal	39.30
46.	Somalia	37.80
47.	Sierra Leone	35.10
48.	Benin	34.70
49.	Guinea	29.50
50.	Niger	28.70
51.	Chad	25.70
52.	Burkina Faso	21.80

List of African Countries by Population Wikipedia

The link to Wikipedia (in millions).

1. Nigeria: 177, 2. Ethiopia: 86, 3. Egypt: 84, 4. Democratic Republic of Congo: 74

5. South Africa: 53, 6. Tanzania: 46, 7. Kenya:43  8. Algeria: 38  9. Uganda: 35

10. Sudan: 35  11. Morocco: 33, 12. Ghana: 26,  13. Mozambique: 24, 14. Ivory Coast: 24

15. Madagascar: 21, 16. Cameroon: 21, 17. Angola: 21, 18. Niger: 17, 19. Burkina Faso: 17

20. Mali: 16,  21. Malawi: 16,  22. Zambia: 14,  23. Senegal: 13,  24. Zimbvabwe: 13

25. Chad: 12,  26. Guinea: 11,  27. Tunisia: 10,  28. Rwanda: 10,  29. South Sudan: 10

30. Benin: 9,  31. Somalia: 9,  32. Burundi: 9,  33. Togo:6.6,  34. Lybia: 6.3,

35. Sierra Leone: 5,  36. Central African Republic: 5, 37. Eritrea: 4.9, 38. Rep of Congo: 4.5

39. Liberia: 3.8,  40. Mauritania: 3.4,  41. Gabon: 2.2,  42. Namibia: 2.1,  43. Botswana: 2,

44. Lesotho: 1.8,  45. Equatorial Guinea: 1.8,  46. Gambia: 1.7,  47. Guinea Bissau: 1.7,

48. Mauritius: 1.2,  49. Swaziland:1, 50. Djibouti: 0,9

Another useless (but costly) trip

Visiting the blog of the American Cancer Society I find this pathetically and shockingly empty post (without forgetting to thank the funder of such useless trips). The example of what should stop. There is zero information about what the eventual contribution of Lekan O.A. Ayo-Yusuf has been. 

Workshop for journalists in Ouagadougou

Sylviane Ratte continues to travel around the African continent. The journalists invited to this workhop in Ouagadougou seem happy but how many articles or radio programs did they produce, for what investment? Is this a cost effective way to produce tobacco control content in the media? What about paying them directly to produce content? How much is spent on travel and hospitality that could be invested in writing stipends?

Slow Ideas

Atul Gawande's fascinating article in this week's issue of the New Yorker, about 'Some innovations spread fast. How do you speed those that don't.' Any lessons for tobacco control?

Did the Gates Foundation evaluate the African Tobacco Control Consortium?

In the report about the May 15 meeting in Dakar devoted to the future of tobacco control advocacy in Africa (still only available in French?) there is a presentation by Patrick Musavuli entitled: "Report of the evaluation on the ATCC project by the Gates Consultants and about the future of tobacco control advocacy in Africa", «Compte-rendu de l’évaluation des Consultants de GATES sur le projet ATCC, et sur l’avenir de la lutte antitabac en Afrique ». Unfortunately the summary does not provide any information about this "Gates evaluation", who did it, when nor if it is meant to be shared or kept confidential.

Angola: CTCA organizes a 'tobacco control capacity assessment' July 15-19

From reading the CTCA site we learn that 'a tobacco control capacity assessment exercise is currently under way in Angola to help the government identify the country’sability to implement  tobacco control, based on the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC).  The assessment is jointly carried out by the government of Angola with technical support from the World Health organization, ( WHO) and  the Centre for Tobacco Control in Africa  ( CTCA).

IDRC and Taxation of Tobacco Products in West Africa

Revisiting the grants awarded by IDRC it is interesting to look at how Dakar based CRES has been significantly funded to research the taxation of tobacco products in West Africa. Of course many meetings were organized including one in Paris and a 3 day conference in Ougadougou. But is any specific information available on line? I have not found any -yet-.

Fabrice EBEH's presentation in Dakar (May 15) during the What future for tobacco control in Africa meeting.

Below is the summary of the presentation of Fabrice EBEH (in French 'Rapport Consultation ONG') with our translation (in English) of the main points (in yellow) with our comments (in light blue). Considering the content of Rachel Kitonyo's presentation all does not seem as well as Fabrice's summary seems to imply.

Rachel Kitonyo's presentation in Dakar (May 15) during the What future for tobacco control in Africa meeting, including our comments and questions

What to retain of Rachel's presentation (as it is summarized below in French -as the report in only available in French for now- with our partial translation in English of what we consider the key points, colored in yellow with our comments in italics and colored in pale blue).
As diplomatic and vague as the presentation is summarized, it does raise a significant number of issues about how the program was/is managed. How can the apparently badly needed changes be implemented? Or is everything going to remain the same?

Bloomberg Initiative: recent grants awarded

The Bloomberg Initiative has recently awarded the following grants: 6 months support for the Ghana advocates ($100,463), one year media initiative in Kenya ($73,659), one year grant for advocacy support in Nigeria ($170,380) and the Nigeria Adult Tobacco Survey ($12,000), 3 months grant for advocacy support in Senegal ($31,241) for a grand total of a little less than $400,000. Applications for the next round end July 26.

Announcing Round 14 of the Bloomberg Initiative Grants Program

Announcing Round 14 of the Bloomberg Initiative Grants Program (1 July 2013)
Project Ideas are now being accepted for Round Fourteen of the Grants Program. The deadline for submission of Project Ideas is 12:00 hours, US Eastern
Standard Time (GMT -5 hours) on Friday, 26 July 2013.