Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

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?

As the end of the granting period approaches for the $32 million awarded by the Gates Foundation in 2014

As the end of the 3 year granting period approaches for most of the $32 million awarded by the Gates Foundation in 2014, we have revisited the sites of various grantees. We have found little about what was done. As for now there does not look like there is -yet- a synthetic and detailed evaluation. Where were those S32 million invested? How exactly were the $8.5 million to ACBF used? What surveys were developed by the CDC Foundation for $4.5? What about the rest, ie $18.5 million? How much for WHO? What else? Any ideas? Here is the link to our initial post on this mega-grant, where Cynthia Lewis explained their intent. She did mention a demand for more transparency. We certainly agree but how is it going to apply to those grants and what's next?

 

 

Is the Bloomberg Initiative still investing in tobacco control in Africa?

Today's visit to their website brings one grant awarded in November 2016 for the South African government ($95.110). Anything else? Visiting the ACBF site one finds WHO has selected 5 African countries to get some help (Cape Verde, Chad, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Zambia). This looks like a big regression from what used to be organized. What happened? There is a complete lack of global strategy for the whole continent, bringing together all countries and all advocates. What is left of what we had hoped to achieve?

Who is going to travel to Harare, how much is it going to cost, for what benefit?

This info found on the site of the ACBF: another 5 day workshop to supposedly train people who are already (or should be) seasoned advocates. We have denounced from the very start how travel and hospitality expenses were totally out of control as far as the Gates Foundation projects in Africa were concerned. At the age of internet and skype (now owned by Microsoft), plenty of money continues to be spent on wasteful and useless 'workshops'. When will they learn? I fear never.

Tobacco Control Advocacy and Leadership training for CSOs
Harare, Zimbabwe
29 Aug 2016
02 Sep 2016
This is an annual Coordination event held for ACBF supported sub-grantees. This year’s workshop aims to enhance understanding and impart skills in advocacy and leadership for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to be able to advocate for the passage of Tobacco Control (TC) Bill and effective implementation of TC laws in the respective target countries. The workshop will be jointly conducted with Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK). CSOs supported by CTFK will also participate in this workshop.

Role of ACBF

The African Capacity Building Foundation with support from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is supporting Civil Society Organizations in 4 various countries:
1. Centre for Tobacco Control in Africa (CTCA) in Uganda,
2. University of Cape Town, Economics for Tobacco Control Project South Africa,
3. African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) in Togo, and
4. Ministry of Health in Senegal to support tobacco control.

The 9 Civil Society Organisations being supported include:

Association Mauritanienne de Lutte contre la Tuberculose et le SIDA (AMALUTS)- Mauritania
Initiative Pour L’Education Et le Controle du Tabagisme (IECT)-Benin
Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC)-Nigeria
African Network for Information and Action Against Drugs (RAID)-Gambia
Mouvement Populaire Pour la sante au Gabon (MPS)-Gabon
International Institute for Legislative Affairs (IILA)-Kenya
Parliamentary Forum on Non Communicable Diseases (PFNCD)-Uganda
Association PREVENIR-Senegal
Mathiwos Wondu -YeEthiopia Cancer Society (MWECS)-Ethiopia

Of the above 9 CSOs target countries, five of them have tobacco control laws passed and are currently implementing the TC laws, the countries include: Senegal, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Gabon. The other four countries are working on the passage of FCTC compliant tobacco controls Bills, of which TAPS and Plain Packaging is part of WHO FCTC compliant law.

Is the Bloomberg Initiative-Campaign forTobacco-Free-Kids still funding projects in Africa?

According to their map of grants, as visited today, they are not. Or they just need to update the map? Or they don't care sharing this information any more? We asked them repeatedly about it. To no avail. Yet.

The first official press release about the meeting in Harare

What do you learn from this press release? Anything specific? Anything new? The participants, although no detail is provided about them by Dr Thomas Munthali, are probably tobacco control veterans, with years of activism and funding. Maybe ulterior press releases will tell us a bit more about this meeting and how the Gates Foundation millions are used? Maybe not.

The more things change: Annual coordination workshop for ACBF's sub-grantees in Harare, September 28 - October 2

Is it really necessary and useful to move all those people to Harare? What's the cost of such an "annual coordination workshop"? The "rationale"? The workshop aims to equip the sub-grantees with knowledge and skills in ACBF procedures for effective and efficient grant utilization and management. Funded by the Bill & Melinda  Gates Foundation, the tobacco control project advances evidence-based tobacco control policies in Africa.

News from the Democratic Republic of Congo

Visiting the site of the Alliance Congolaise pour le Controle du Tabac (AACT) there is one post devoted to the launch of a smokefree environment campaign  (in French) that mentions at the end the planning of an international meeting that would take place in October 7/9 in Kinshasa, financed by the Gates Foundation and involving about 100 people from 22 African countries. Is that really necessary/useful? How much is that going to cost? The front page of the site still has a typo about the French word for 'welcome"...

A grant of US$ 8,540.407 to the African Capacity Building Foundation

As we kept looking for more details about the $32 million grant awarded by the Gates Foundation, we found out the amount awarded to ACBF at the end of text posted on their website under the title Why Africa needs antitobacco interventions, dated June 1, 2015: $8.5+ million. It does not specify what are the 'target countries' nor how the global amount is divided among the programs nor how much goes to its administration.

The opaque transparency of the Gates Foundation

Revisiting the website of the ACBF we discover this press release from the Gates Foundation dated November 19, 2014 announcing continued support for tobacco control in Africa. BUT, while this text lists the organizations the Foundation is partnering with, it does not provide any $ figure about the budgets awarded to each of them. At the same time, Cynthia Lewis writes:
You asked for more transparency in grant making, better role clarity and coordination among partners and grant makers, and direct investment in a strategic African organization that can help build capacity.
The problem (as we see it) is that she does not provide any detailed information besides the names of the 'intermediaries". Visiting, for instance, the CTFK site we were unable (as of today) to find any reference to a grant awarded in 2015 to an African country. As for the grant awarded to ACBF, we don't know it's size nor is there much detail about how it is going.

(After some more investigating we found that the ABCF grant seems to be for $8.5M, while the grant for surveys by the CDC Foundation would be $4.6M: that still leaves $18.5M unaccounted for -how much for CTFK? how much for WHO?- and there is very little detail about how all those amounts are going to be used. We should not have to go looking : why isn't all the info given upfront? That would be real transparency).

Cynthia also mentions that: As you know, we are also supporting some social marketing and behavior change work against tobacco use in Africa as a complement to important and ongoing policy work.
Well, we don't know about that. What is it about?

CTCA Phase 2 (2015 -2017): 5 target countries

Details here

$32 million to implement tobacco control programs

The press release posted on the ACBF website is below. Details remain very sketchy on how this budget will be managed. There is reference to a communiqué by the Gates Foundation but we were unable to find it. 12 countries appear to have been selected for funding. What about the rest? How much information will be made public? The the three year and $32 million grant was announced in July 2014 on the ACBF site. ACBF nor the Gates Foundation answered our requests for more details.

ACBF & Gates Foundation partners lay groundwork for next phase of tobacco control  

       

Harare, Zimbabwe

25 Nov, 2014

The African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and Campaign for Tobacco Free kids (CTFK) are advancing coordination of the Tobacco Control Project across Africa funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The three Gates Foundation partners met from the 24^th-25^th of November and agreed that coordination and effective implementation of tobacco control will take a prominent place in the second phase of the project.

During the two day sessions, the partners agreed on an effective mechanism for work at country level, developed a joint reporting tool and agreed to develop a monthly calendar of key activities as well as to hold regular calls to discuss their plans and progress at country and regional levels.  

The meeting served as a platform for the partners to gain a better appreciation of each organization's role in tobacco control; share work plans and deliverables as well as priority countries of focus and partners at country and regional levels.

ACBF, as the host of the first coordination meeting, recommended that the partners build their relationship for tobacco control based on trust, transparency and communication. They were also encouraged to build on each other’s comparative advantage and competence. These outcomes will ensure coordination for effective implementation of tobacco control in Africa by avoiding duplication of activities and mismanagement of resources.

Last week, the Gates Foundation officially released a communiqué announcing their commitment of more than US $32 million to support governments and Civil Society Organizations to implement tobacco control policies and programs in order to reduce tobacco use.

Under this funding, ACBF will support strategic grant-making and capacity building of the Centre for Tobacco Control in Africa,  the University of Cape Town and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to advance evidence-based Tobacco Control policies in Africa including tobacco taxation, advertising bans, graphic warning labels, and smoke-free environments. The CSOs will be drawn from Uganda, Kenya, Mauritania, Botswana, Ethiopia, Senegal, Nigeria, and Ghana, Niger, Benin, Gabon and the Gambia.

That's five "big' countries (Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Ghana), two 'medium" Niger and Senegal, 5 small (Mauritania, Botswana, Benin, Gabon).

Representing ACBF were Bakary Kone and Patience Jambaya (as seen on the pictures)

 

November 24-25: Coordination for effective Tobacco Control in Africa, in Harare.

I found this by chance while doublechecking the information provided on the Gates Foundation site. There is still no mention of the amount of the grant awarded to the ABCF which is strange as usually (apparently) they disclose the amount involved. It was on the site of ABCF. Is this meeting really necessary? How transparent is it going to be? How much will it cost? For what results? What do all the other local/national advocates really think? What chance do they have to be heard? Who is in charge of the project at ABCF?

November 24- 25     

Coordination for effective Tobacco Control in Africa 

Harare, Zimbabwe

The tobacco control partner coordination meeting will be held in Harare at the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACBF) secretariat on 24th to 25th November 2014. Three institutions namely; ACBF, WHO (AFRO and Headquarters) and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK) will meet to discuss how to improve coordination for Tobacco Control in Africa under the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funding for Africa.

Susan Desmond-Hellman: The Gates Foundation needs more transparency

The Chronicle of Philanthropy tells us about a talk delivered by Susan Desnond-Hellman where shew mentions the need for more transparency and listening to feedback. We wish this would not be only wishful thinking as far as the grants awarded by the Gatews Foundation to promote tobacco control in Africa are concerned.  but a very small part of the Foundation's activity but why should they be exempt of the transparency requirement?

What are foundations for?

A critical analysis of the role of 'Big Philanthropy' and democracy. By Gara LaMarche in Democracy.

What's left of the promotion of tobacco control in Africa by The Gates Foundation? Not much

Visiting the site of the ACBF (African Capacity Building Foundation) that was awarded a 3 year grant (amount not available) one can see that the scope of the interventions has been drastically reduced, focusing on the CTCA and the University of Cape Town. Only six countries are 'targeted': Botswana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and Uganda. 0 information about this grant is available on the site of the Gates Foundation (that I could find). The more it changes... It's sad to see such a waste.
The prospects don't look much better from the Bloomberg Initiative/CTFK where I have not seen any new grant recently awarded. When there is no clear strategy and no real leadership...

CTCA: What's next?

What's the relationship between CTCA and ABCF going to be? The respective leaders met in August in Kampala. What's next? What about the other organizations/groups that used to be funded by the Gates Foundation?

What future for ATCA?

ATCA held a strategic planning workshop in Lomé (Togo) for 3 days (April 2-4). They had the support of an anonymous consultant (but for his first name, Stéphane) from the Canadian consulting firm Universalia, apparently without previous experience in tobacco control.
If you can understand what the results were, please tell me (see below the document provided on their site). No financial information is provided, like where is the funding going to come from? From the Gates Foundation again? From ACS?

What's next for the CTCA?

WHO received in December 2009, $9.994.093 for a 5 year project centered around the creation of a 'hub'.
The search for the country where the 'hub' would be installed was organized by the same DC based firm that was put in charge of its design and 'independent' evaluation. The announced budget for the 'hub' was to be about $3.5 million (less than 35% of the global grant) according to the document published in April 2010. The CTCA was inaugurated on... November 1, 2011 (the director had been recruited in September 2011).
The 'first phase' of the WHO project is supposed to end, according to this document (at the bottom) in two months, in July 2014. What's next? Is the Gates Foundation going to continue its funding? at what level? for how long?

About the evaluation of the African Tobacco Control Consortium/ACS grant/project and what's next?

During a meeting a year ago in Dakar the existence of an evaluation of the ATCC/ACS grant by consultants for the Gates Foundation was mentioned but without any additional information. While we still don't know the details of the evaluation we found out, one year later, about its authors: EnCompass LLC of Washington DC, a group that also helped WHO design the Kampala based CTCA and is in charge of its evaluation (see below). As the fate of the Consortium looks uncertain, what's next? What happened to the RFQ posted in November by the Gates Foundation? Contacted, the Gates Foundation did not reply. As usual, everything remains secret.

Bloomberg Initiative/CTFK: Grants 2007-2014. Who got what.

Grants awarded by Bloomberg Initiative/CTFK, country by country and year by year (as of July 28, 2014). What do you think?

How to waste $100 millon+

From the New Yorker, the story about the $100 million+ grant Mark Zuckerberg spent to improve schools in Newark and how it failed.

 

 

The case for philanthropy criticism?

From The Atlantic, a very touchy subject, especially when you depend on philantropic funding. Does it apply to tobacco control funding in Africa? Does anybody dare expressing any wish for changes, ask for public evaluation and transparency? But of course, speaking out can bring personal negative consequences, as explained in this opinion in Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Madagascar: 3 day training workshop

From the FCA's website. How cost effective is the training workshop practice that is still prevalent? In our internet age, is it really necessary to move (and host) people ("experts") that way to share information and build capacity? How is the information made available beyond the workshop's audience? What's different from the september 2013 workshop? Is that voluntourism or expertourism?

Philamplify: honest feedback to improve philanthropy

Philamplify is an interesting initiative by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy to promote honest feedback to improve philanthropy. As for now it does not seem to include international projects but it is still worth examining.

Voluntourism?

Do Tobacco Control Advocates succumb to voluntourism (as discussed in the New York Times). In our internet age I often wonder about the real use of many (costly) trips/meetings under the pretense of helping out. Of course there are always great group pictures, but what else?

Bloomberg Initiative: The search function of "what we fund' still broken

10 days after we signaled that the search function was broken, it still is!

FCTC 2013 Africa Shadow Reports

FCTC 'Shadow Reports" provide a real picture of the situation in each country. As you'll see implementation is often a problem.

How much is Makere University involved in the anti-gay legislation in Uganda?

Looking at the press release presenting the support of 'scientists' in favor of the anti-gay legislation in Uganda one cannot but notice the presence of several faculty members of Makerere University. In this context can organisations concerned with human rights keep collaborating and funding Makerere University? What do international funders of Makerere University intend to do? Nothing? A recent summary of the situation, an opinon from the Kenyan Star and the official Ugandan position according to Reuters that also mentions Uganda is not the only African country with anti-gay legislation.

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.

Africa's aid mess

Article by author Paul Theroux for Barron's.

Ibrahim Index of African Governance

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

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. 

 

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.

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.

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

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).

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?

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.

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?

CTCA's annual performance review June 24-27

From the CTCA's site this self-congratulatory presentation of their second annual performance review that does not tell us anything specific that we did not already know but probably cost a bundle. Who cares at WHO? Nobody as nobody outside of WHO is allowed to look at the cost effectiveness of the programs. Just try to get the detailed annual budget for the CTCA or the cost of this annual performance review...

Rachel Kitonyo to leave the Consortium by June 30

Rachel Kitonyo, ATCC's Programs Director, shares this information in an email (see below) received yesterday. It raises (at least for us) a few questions as Rachel had been very instrumental in the creation and management of the Consortium. How will this departure impact the management of ATCC? That remains to be seen as well as the potential changes that could occur following the still mysterious 'evaluation' made by Gates Foundation's advisors as mentioned briefly in the report ( see page 6, only in French for now) about the May 15 meeting "What future for tobacco control in Africa" that took place in Dakar. Rachel's presentation at this meeting is summarized on page 5 and 6.

What is the management overhead for the grants awarded to promote tobacco control in Africa?

This recent article about overhead at big charities invites the question about the management overhead. For instance, what is ACS doing for their apparent very substantial share  ($1.5 million+?) of the Gates Foundation grant ($7 to 8 million)?