Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

RDC: a website for the Alliance Congolaise pour le Contrôle du Tabac

Considering the technical issues of the new ACCT site (click for instance on the presentation or nos projets sections), one wonders why they did not choose to use existing ready to use blog platforms like Blogspot or Wordpress along with a Facebook page instead of trying (and failing for now) to master Joomla. There is also a spelling problem with the position of the e and u in accueil/welcome. Easy to fix :) All our best wishes.

CTFK is looking for an innovative and strategic Associate Director of International Social Media

Just after posting my somehow pessimistic post about social media I find this announcement (pdf) on the CTFK site about the search for an "Innovative and strategic Associate Director of International Social Media", with a special focus on Africa and China. The perfect job for me (at least regarding Africa).
Feel free to recommend me by contacting [email protected]
Thank you in advance.
The new Associate Director will provide strategic leadership to the development and implementation of an international 30-month social media project in support of tobacco control policy advocacy. This new and innovative initiative seeks to enhance and expand the Campaign’s communications capacity and the advocacy efforts of organizations in China and Africa through the strategic use of social media tools and targeted grantmaking in priority countries.
I don't think it's a good idea to try to find one person to work on both Africa and China. They are far too different and it would be better to have one person for each. Speaking (and writing) French should not be a plus it should be a must (like chinese for a chinese position). Unsolicited advice.

Tobacco control advocates and social media

I have lamented for years that tobacco control advocates don't use social media enough. A comment I just read in the most recent issue of Tobacco Control confirms my assessment and my experience: most of the time, the longer the advocates have been involved in the field, the less inclined they are to use social media. Of course there are exceptions (like Simon Chapman with the Facebook based Global Tobacco Control Network ) but where is the rest? :(

Where are the African leaders/groups on line? on a regular basis? Other exception, LISTAB, the Senegalese blog. You can congratulate Massamba. Yes I helped them launch the blog but they are the ones keeping it alive.

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.

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.

Ouverture d'un blog distinct pour suivre l'actualité en français

Après plusieurs années de coexistence des langues anglaise et française sur le blog Tobacco Control in Africa il nous semble judicieux d'ouvrir un blog distinct uniquement en français, Vers une Afrique Sans Tabac, tandis que TCA deviendra uniquement anglophone. Une telle séparation (pas si éloignée car il suffit d'un clic pour aller de l'un à l'autre) nous permettra d'offir un meilleur confort de lecture et un environnement linguistique homogène. Qu'en pensez-vous?

Tobacco Control Journal joins the blogosphere

Tobacco Control Journal opened a blog on July 8. Editor Ruth Malone explains: "The aim of this blog is to stimulate debate, generate ideas and explore new and, at times, controversial ideas. Increasing the opportunities for interaction between readers, authors, and editors is essential to ensuring that the journal remains on the leading edge in today's world of instant and constant digital communication."

Welcome and all our best wishes for this new blog.

What about a project similar to the Africa reporting project for the tobacco control program funded by the Gates Foundation?

The Africa Reporting Program funded by the Gates Foundation with the University of Berkeley looks like an interesting model although I think the program for tobacco control could hire more local journalists, in every country and with a detailed deadline and content requirements. Less than 10% of the budget could certainly pay for one journalist per country publishing one article per month. That would be effective communication and advocacy. A French speaking example is Baleki Congo Blog Net, the collective blog open in RDC with the support of the Lille's school of journalism. I am not sure there is any article in French in the Africa Reporting Program. I think each journalist is compensated $50 per post.

Kathryn Touré (IDRC Regional Director in Dakar) has a blog

I just discovered Kathryn Touré's blog. Kathryn is IRDC regional director in Dakar. What a good surprise when I was unable to convince the IDRC people in charge of the ATSA program to blog about their work nor to make blogs part of ATSA's communication strategy (even when I had created blogs for all of them and they "only" had to provide content). Who knows, maybe she'll be able to make them blog. All my best wishes to her for this task.

Are blogs useful to communicate on the internet?

You'll find below the example of the blog of Jackie Tumwine. Originally based in Uganda, Jackie now works in Washington DC with CTFK (Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids). She stopped updating her blog one year ago (in November 2008) but as you can see there is still a significant number of visitors: 108 this week, 17,559 globally (data provided by Sitemeter).

Why did she stop blogging? Why are'nt more/all advocates blogging, individually and/or collectively?

Are there institutional and/or practical obstacles preventing African tobacco control advocates to blog?

Why are blogs absent of the communication strategy of the main ongoing programs?

We'll try to bring a few answers to this key question as far as the dissemination of information is concerned.