Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

African Women Leaders in Tobacco Control

Here

 

Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) elects two new board members

 Africa Tobacco Control Alliance , which is a Pan-African civil society network of more than 120 civil society organizations dedicated to preventing an epidemic of tobacco use on the African continent, recently elected 2 new board members. In a board election held last month, ATCA elected  Emma Wanyonyi, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of International institute of legislative affairs, based in Kenya. Also elected on to the board is Mr. Djibril Welle of Senegal.

Are companies using study tours to promote smoking?

ATCA tweets about this article in New Vision (Uganda) by Jonathan Driliga. I don't know about promoting smoking but it looks like this factory is polluting the environment and its neighbors :(

ATCA was looking for a 3 year strategic plan (2018-2020). Did they find it?

The following information was posted on the ATCA's website under 'opportunities". The deadline to submit a plan was April 30.

The African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) is seeking offers for consultancy services to develop a 3-year Strategic Plan on tobacco control and related issues.

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.

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?

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.

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?

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".

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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)?

Most recent grants from Bloomberg Initiative - CTFK

Since the last time we checked in January, a few new grants have been awarded: to ATCA (182K, February 2013 with 8 target countries), Cameroon ($99K, March 2013). See the details below.

If we add the grants awarded at the end of 2012 we see the financial support is focused on Uganda, Togo, Kenya, Cameroon and ATCA (for their multicountries WAEMU initiative)

FCA trains African NGOs in shadow reporting

See the information as posted on the site of the FCTC about the shadow report training that took place in Dakar on March 7-8, 2013.

One more big meeting: is it the most effective strategy?

ACS + WHO Afro and all the usual main donor organizations have brought together representatives of 22 countries to share their tobacco control experience and expertise. They met for 2 days. What was achieved? At what cost? What was achieved at the various previous similar meetings? Is this the most effective strategy? When will the next meeting take place? At what cost? With what results? Beside a significant budget for travel and hospitality?

Grant makers and media

This article is about the situation in the US but what about the situation in Africa and more precisely what is the grant makers strategy to raise the visibility and awareness about tobacco control issues in African countries/media? Do they even have one? Shouldn't they have one considering the millions involved? Subsidiary question: who is aware of the most recent grant awarded by the Gates Foundation for innovative programs in Africa? Do you know where to look?

CTCA performance review

One more supermeeting involving plenty of dignitaries (30 "global tobacco control advocates") coming to Kampala from far away: at what cost and with what impact? Beyond the announcement (below) we have found zero substantial information about this meeting. The CTCA's site does not contain any (yet) nor the others. After this comment was posted we received a pdf document that provides a little more information, but not much. For instance, no detailed financial data are provided. Not that any of the other group is very transparent about their finances, but that would be a step in the right direction as far as transparency and public accountability are concerned.

African Lawyers Seminar about tobacco control legislation

Organized by CTFK and ATCA in Johannesburg, May 13-18 2012 for the English speaking advocates. Here for more info and the pdf report on the workshop. Another meeting was -supposedly- organized in July for French speaking lawyers but I could not find a report about it, only the announcement (in French).

Bloomberg Initiative: $54,994 to support the enactment of tobacco control regulations in Togo

The Alliance Nationale des Consommateurs et de l’Environnement du Togo was awarded $54,994 in January 2012 by the Bloomberg Initaitive to support the development, adoption and enactment of strong regulations under the Togolese Tobacco Control Law N°2010-017 of 31/12/10. The Executive Director of ANCE is Mr Ebeh Kodjo.
According to the BI site, the project aims to promote the drafting and effective enactment of strong regulations under the Togolese Tobacco Control law.

Message of Ebeh Kodjo about 2011 and 2012: what is the real financial situation for ATCA and the African Consortium?

In a short email message dated December 19, Ebeh Kodjo states that "2012 will not be easy. It will be challenging, annoying, with less money and more demands." Unfortunately he does not provide any hard numbers about ATCA or the Consortium's finances for 2011 or 2012. His apparent pessimism about money seems inconsistent with the information available that seems to point toward increased resources.

From $7 million to $7,884,847: the amount of the grant awarded in 2009 by the Gates Foundation to the African Consortium has increased by 12.64%.

While the initial amount awarded in 2009 was $7 million, the amount now mentioned on the Foundation's site is $7,884,847 (+12.64%). It's good news, but how and why this increase? Does it represent the interests of the invested money?

The 10 countries the Consortium works with

The Africa Tobacco Control Consortium works in 10 countries in the Sub-Saharan Africa. These countries include Algeria, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, Zambia, The Gambia, Gabon, Senegal, Uganda and Congo Brazzaville. You can learn more about our project activities in these countries. For update on our project in the individual countries, please click on the country name below: Updates on our In-Country Projects

Projects in Republic of Benin   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Botswana   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Algeria   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Cameroun   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Zambia   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Sierra Leone   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Gambia   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Congo Brazaville   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Senegal   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Gabon   ( 0 Articles ) Projects in Uganda   ( 0 Articles )

 

About how the Gates Foundation partners with journalists

Here is an interesting post by Reuters blogger Felix Salmon. I wish the Gates Foundation would realize that compensating African journalists to write stories (and produce radio shows as radio is such an important medium in Africa) about tobacco control would be the most cost effective way to raise the awareness and support advocacy about those issues.

Africa Tobacco Control Consortium: Updates about the projects: 0 article on the site, more info on Facebook

Visiting the site of the Africa Tobacco Control Consortium I looked at the page devoted to the updates about ongoing projects taking place in 10 countries. There was 0 update available. It looks like the most frequently updated channel is their Facebook page. Visiting later the site of ATCRI, I noticed that the French version still did not work. There was very little fresh and precise information and the items were not dated. What are we to think about this new aggressive multinational initiative? The most recent item on their FaceBook page was of August 15 (4 posts on FB). Problems?

Small grants are beautiful, but are there any?

This post is about the effectiveness of "small" grants ($5.000/$10.000 and under). What happened to small grants in the strategy of the present programs? 

American Cancer Society awarded $451,720 by the Gates Foundation (in October 2010)

Visiting the site of the Gates Foundation, I discover that the American Cancer Society was awarded in October 2010 a grant of $451,720, apparently relative to tobacco control in Africa. My guess is it was used (in part?) to fund the conference in Johannesburg. Was that a wise investment considering the Consortium (managed by ACS for $300K per year, $1.5 million total for 5 years) now tells us there is not enough money available to work with all African countries?

ATCA: Elections to the Board (2011-2013) the results

ATCA's elected Board members are Issah Ali (President), Flore Ndembiyembe (Treasurer), Yussuf Saloojee, Patricia Lambert, Francisco Cabo, Inoussa Saouna and Aimé Ndamina (Association Burundaise de lutte contre le tabagisme). There are no news about the General Assembly approving (voting on) the Annual Report nor about presenting for approval financial documents like the annual audited financial report. According to ATCA's constitution an independent auditor is supposed to verify the financial accounts and the Treasurer is supposed to submit them for a vote of approval by the General Assembly.

ATCA's commitment to transparency and accountability

ATCA's commitment to transparency and accountability is part of its constitution (pdf), starting with a mention in the section 4.6 devoted to Principles and Values (p.6): b) transparency c) accountability.
That translates into obligations that are detailed below.

Who's Who? The staff of the African Tobacco Control Consortium

The ATCC site lists the staff positions but does not provide the names or short bios of the persons in charge. Find below our attempt at more transparency by providing you with this information collected thanks to Google and various sources (like Linkedin).

ATCA: Elections to the Board (2011-2013)

There are 9 candidates for the 7 seats of the ATCA Board: 
Issah Ali (Ghana) is candidate for Chair and Flore Ndembiyembe (Cameroon and OTAF) for Treasurer. Among the outgoing members, 2 are not candidates for reelection: Rachel Kitonyo and Mohamed Sidi. There are 3 new candidates: Nelson Baziwelo Zakaju (Drug Fight Malawi), Inoussa Saouna (OTAF, SOS Niger and Present Chair of ATCRI), Aimé Ndamina (Association Burundaise de lutte contre le tabagisme). The other outgoing members are candidates for reelection. The voting process is taking place via the internet.

African Tobacco Control Alliance: two year activities report (2009-2010)

The African Tobacco Control Alliance has published a report (pdf) about its activities since its creation in November 2008 in Durban. ATCA's Chair, Rachel Kitonyo, encourages ATCA's members are to read it and provide their feedback. As for now this document does not include any detailed information about the finances. Maybe it will become available later. How would ATCA rate on the Transparency Scorecard?

Indicators for a transparent management scorecard

Following up on the need for more transparency (and accountability) that has been at the core of this blog, I have listed 10 indicators that I believe would be helpful to assess how organizations are performing. Here they are:

1. Names, bios of the staff and contact email (program, project managers, all staff involved)
2. Detailed annual report explaining the activities
3. Detailed annual operational budget (easy to find and providing key info, see below)
4. Budget for staff and consultants (staff administrative costs)
5. Budget for travel and hospitality (including monthly update and yearly detailed list)
6. Transparency blog providing regular detailed information about the progress of each program/project/grant
7. Open selection process for grant applications (all applications available)
8. Transparency requirement for grantees and sub-grantees (including the 7 first items of this scorecard)
9. Establishment of a benchmark scorecard (baseline) for the project, updated yearly to allow evaluation
10. Willingness to answer questions and provide information (for big institutions, Access to Information person and procedure)

What do you think the score is for each organization involved in promoting tobacco control in Africa?

 

What makes an effective campaign?

Each campaign needs to have a focus in four areas throughout the campaign. The campaign needs effective management, it needs the right policy, it needs an effective communication strategy and it needs the right network. These elements interplay with each other.

From the Network Advocacy blog.

Zambia: 5 ATCA representatives visit Lusaka with the financial support of the Norwegian Cancer Society

ATCA informs us that 5 representatives are going to visit Lusaka from February 15 to February 17 to "meet the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) authorities, health authorities, WHO representative, journalists and other TC stakeholders of the region".

Taboo question: how much does this trip cost?

Senegal: Methodological workshop on tobacco taxation in West Africa

The CRES has hosted in Dakar a three day workshop (February 22-24) on tobacco taxation in West Africa. Among the participants, Evan Blecher (ACS), Sylviane Ratte (Union), Ebeh Kodjo (ATCA), Noureiny Tcha Kondor (African Consortium), Greg Hallen (IDRC).

From COP4: Tobacco taxation and development in Sub Saharan Africa

This article by Nouréiny TCHA-KONDOR, economist and tax campaign coordinator for the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) was published in the bulletin 107 of the FCA during COP4 (here is the link to the whole bulletin in pdf format, the article is on page 6 )

The controversy over the Social Innovation grants brings more transparency

Read the story in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and also this opinion piece. What lessons (if any) for the ways tobacco control grants are managed? In this case all the applications and their reviews are going to be made public. One wishes the same could be true as far as the tobacco control grants are concerned.

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. 

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%.

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.

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?

Tih Armstrong Ntiabang new Media Advocacy and Communications Coordinator with the African Tobacco Control Consortium

Tih announced his nomination on LinkedIn. All our congratulations and best wishes. This information is not -yet- available on ATCA's or ATCRI's sites. Tih had been one of the African journalists invited to cover COP3 in Durban where he had supported the creation of an African network of journalists interested in tobacco control.