Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

Up in smoke? Global Tobacco Control Advocacy and local mobilization in Africa

Up in smoke? Global Tobacco Control Advocacy and local mobilization in Africa, is a paper by Amy S Patterson and Elizabeth Gil, published in Oxford's International Affairs. Unfortunately, only the abstract is accessible for free. To access it for 24 hour, would cost you $45! I doubt many of our readers can make such an investment. I was allowed to read it via a friend who had access. It is a discussion on how much the big donors (like Gates and Bloomberg) influence/control the type of advocacy organized locally and how they could be wrong. Comments from advocates would be interesting, if they were willing to comment. It's hard to compare countries. Here the focus is on Ghana, Rwanda and Tanzania. I'll leave at that for now. Time for Le grande Thanksgiving, le jour de merci donnant... thank you Art. Rereading this post in 2021 and looking for Amy Patterson, I find this opinion she wrote for the Washington Post for WNTD 2021. She seems to miss the fact there is no difference between Bloomberg/GF and WHO as they are the main funders of WHO.

$5,992,617 to supply Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) with "country specific data"

Visiting the Gates Foundation site I find this new grant (October 2019) to Development Gateway. If you are curious about other grants awarded to tobacco control projects concerning Africa, click here.

ACBF funding from the Gates Foundation: $14 million + (November 12 2018)

I had missed this info I just found on the Gates Foundation site (copy below). Those links are now (2021) useless. See below for the info.

Also see this ACBF video on Youtube (lots of blah, blah, no details)

Is vaping a potential killer or a useful aid? Different South African points of view

This article by Marika Sboros in Business Day compares the points of view of South African health professionals: Pamela Naidoo, Derek Yach and Richard Van Zyl Smit .

Twitter chats proposed by CASA

Visit CASA on twitter to discuss with Samrat Chowdhery (here the THR-rendezvous posted in 2018). I also recommend the long twitter chat with Clive Bates that took place on May 15. I only found about it today as he reposted it on his blog. Titled Rethinking tobacco and nicotine, it includes several points about Africa.

World No Tobacco Day 2019 Awards for Africa

Here are the "winners"

Every year, WHO recognizes individuals or organizations in each of the six WHO Regions for their accomplishments in the area of tobacco control. This recognition takes the form of WHO Director-General Special Recognition Award and World No Tobacco Day Awards.

Nota: I could not find any details about the accomplishments that justified the awards attributed...

WHO Director-General Special award

• His Excellency the Minister of Health Professor Kane Boubacar, Islamic Republic of Mauritania
• His Excellency the Minister of Health Dr Tawfiq bin Fawzan Al-Rabiah, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

African Region awardees

• Dr Edumbadumba Egdula Pierre César, National Parliament, Democratic Republic of the Congo
• The House of People’s Representatives of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
• Ministry of Health and Quality of Life, Republic of Mauritius
• Dr Ana da Conceição dos Passos Mamede Graça, National Institute Against Drugs, Republic of Angola
• Mr Peter Unekwu-Ojo Friday, Executive Director, Cedar Refuge Foundation, Federal Republic of Nigeria

Meharry Medical College starts using Juul's funding for survey

Here the July 23 press release. Have you read the first post about this $7.5 million grant awarded by Juul? Here.

$ 3million for 20 Scholarships grants for students from Malawi funded by the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World

The Foundation announced the new program on July 22, 2019. You can read here the press release and we also reproduced the text below. I emailed Nicole Bradley about the budget (not mentioned in the press release): she replied this is a three year, $3 million program. The deadline to apply is October 17, 2019.

The grants are managed by the US based Institute for International Education.

BAT to invest in a nicotine pouches plant in Kenya

Here the link to the article by Julie Owino for Capital Business.

WHO engages African parliamentarians in Lusaka

Here the presentation of the meeting that took place on June 27.

$7.5 million funding from Juul labs to Meharry Medical College to study e-cigs

Here the press  release of Meharry Medical College (in Nashville, Tennessee), the US largest private, independent historically black academic health sciences center, founded in 1876, is a United Methodist Church-related institution. Also here the letter sent by the College's President.

Message of WHO's Regional Director for Africa for WNTD 2019

Read here the message of Dr Matshidiso Moeti,for World No Tobacco Day 2019. I did not see any specific information about the situation in Africa.

Revisiting the Gates Foundation's pages devoted to tobacco control

While the Gates Foundation has invested millions of dollars since 2008 to promote tobacco control I could find only 3 press releases, the most recent one on April 12, 2010. How is that for transparency or rather lack of, quasi-total opacity? There is no global report available that would detail what/who has been funded and with what results during all those years. Googling a bit more, I found a 2014 press release of November 19, 2014 posted on the ACBF site (see below). Anything else?

Campaign for Safer Alternatives launched

According to this March 19 article in Tobacco Reporter,  CAmpaign for Safer Alternatives, CASA, chaired by Joseph Magero was launched:

"Joseph Magero, chair of the Campaign for Safer Alternatives and holder of a Global Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship, said society’s relationship with tobacco and nicotine was changing due to technical developments in vaping devices and other safer nicotine products. “The Campaign for Safer Alternatives has formally launched this week to ensure more people across East Africa receive accurate information on alternatives to smoking,” he said. “By arming people with information, we can finally begin to curb the tobacco epidemic.”

Projects presently funded by CTFK in Africa: only one left (as of now) in 2019? ACBF now the main source?

Go and visit the database of grants awarded by CTFK. I found only a project in Chad.

Maybe/probably most of the grants are now awarded by the African Capacity Building Foundation, as presented in this September 2018 video? Zero detailed information about the amounts involved and the projects themselves. At the very end they say they intend to fund more projects in more countries but that's all. The ACBF provided us  with 4 pdf documents you can access via the urls below:

document 1 , document 2 , document 3, document 4

Rendez-vous with Marie Maurisse

Cyberinterview with Marie Maurisse, author of the investigative report The blazing success of Swiss cigarettes in Africa.

Philip Morris in talks to buy Majority stake in Kenyan Tobacco company

Kenya’s Mastermind Tobacco is expected to sell its majority stake to Philip Morris International Inc, at undisclosed amount if their current talks conclude successfully. Mastermind manufacture brands that target the poorer smokers in the region with brands such as Supermatch, Superman, Rocket and Rally.

Made in Switzerland's cigarettes sold in Africa more toxic

This investigation by Marie Maurisse that won an investigation award from Public Eye focused on Morocco shows that cigarettes made in Switzerland and sold in Africa by Big Tobacco companies are more toxic (more nicotine, more tar) than those sold in Europe.

Cape Verde new tobacco control law

Tobacco control in Cape Verde has picked up a notch. The fight against tobacco will go through a ban on smoking indoors and control of sales to minors, according to a plan that will help implement the new law that is expected to be approved soon.

Malawi turning to Marijuana farming after tobacco demand dwindles

Malawi is set to become the next African country to legalize marijuana farming in a bid to boost its economy. This comes as its major foreign exchange earner tobacco starts to see the impact of a decades-long global anti-smoking lobby led by organizations including the World Health Organization and other African based tobacco control organizations.