Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

Botswana: "If it wasn't for poverty I wouldn't sell cigarettes"

In this article Isaac Pinielo interviews smokers, vendors and health experts about their relation to smoking and the tobacco situation in Botswana

Source: Mmegi online

Ghana: VALD calls for early passage of Tobacco Bill.

Mr Massawudu of the VALD NGO made this statement to the Ghana News Agency in solidarity with the celebration of the 10th International Week of Resistance to Tobacco Transnationals across the globe.

Source: Ghana News Agency

New graphic warnings in ... Chile. Why not in Cameroon or Kenya? or Madagascar?

Why not an All Africa campaign to push for graphic warnings? Mauritius is showing the way. 

IDRC: What happened to the database developed by the American Cancer Society?

Under the name "Coordination Support for International Tobacco Control Funder's Forum" IDRC provided CAD 14.420 to the American Cancer Society to compile a database of the projects funded to promote tobacco control in low and middle income countries. The one year project starting date was in September 2008 but it lasted until February 2010.

What happened to this database? Who can access it?

Gates Foundation gives $27 million to urban poor projects in 5 cities in Africa

As reported by Kristi Heim in her blog the Business of Giving. The cities concerned are the capitals of Egypt, Angola, malawi, Liberia and Zimbabwe. There is an interesting requirement: The projects will receive a portion of funding from the foundation every other month, contingent on providing detailed financial and activity reports to partners and to the Gates Foundation prior to each installment.

Uganda: tobacco farmers are cutting too many trees

interesting article by Ibrahim Kasita on the New Vision site who echoes Lutgard's recent speech about deforestation caused by excessive tree cutting to provide fuel to cure their products. Several districts in the West Nile region plan to make by-laws to protect the forest and and make tree planting compulsory.

Lutgard Kagaruki's acceptance speech of the 2010 WHO Award

Lutgard delivers a very interesting speech (Google Doc) focusing on the fate of tobacco farmers and how they can develop alternative crops along with a detailed analysis of the tobacco industry strategy.

Tanzania: Lutgard Kagaruki officially presented with her WHO WNTD 2010 Award.

Lutgard is Executive Secretary of the Tanzania Tobacco Control Forum. Here is how she tells the story: The WHO WNTD 2010 Award was presented to me yesterday 29^th September 2010. It was a very colourful ceremony with more than 250 health experts, development partners and other government officials who had gathered for the Joint Annual Health Sector Review Main Meeting. Family and TTCF members also attended. The Health Minister presented the award after a brief introduction from the WHO country rep.

The report from The Guardian and Lutgard's Acceptance speech.

Gambia: a one day 'sensitisation" forum about "re-enforcing" the tobacco control regulations

The forum reminded that as of October 1st new health warnings will be mandatory. As for "re-enforcing" the laws... it will be up to the police, encouraged by an editorial in the Daily Observer and the example of the no-smoking policy enacted in the judiciary complex in Banjul. Time will tell.

Source: AllAfrica

Diversification for tobacco growers: Is bamboo a solution?

IDRC funded several grants (phase 1, phase 2) to study the possible use of bamboo to replace tobacco. Tobaccotobamboo.org (not tobaccotobamboo.com) is a site devoted to present the research taking place in Kenya. TCA is trying to obtain an update as its results now take a special importance in the context of the present controversy with the International Tobacco Growers Association.

ITGA (International Tobacco Growers Association) against implementation of articles 9, 10, 17 and 18 of FCTC

ITGA claims WHO is out of touch with the situation of tobacco farmers with a prospective ban of the use of ingredients other than tobacco in cigarette production.

Source: Press Release

ACS confirms its commitment to Sub-Sahara Africa

John seffrin confirms ACS commitment to tobacco control in Sub-Sahara Africa at the Clinton Global Initiative.

Kenya: BAT wants the Tobacco Control Bill reviewed

From CapitalFM, this article about BAT's complaints. 

Cameroon: workshop to train and sensitize journalists to tobacco control

20 journalists took part in this one day workshop in Youndé. Strangely there is only an article in English while 80% of people in camaroon are Frencg speaking and the government controlled Cameroon Tribune is bilingual. Why no article in French about this workshop?

Source: Cameroon Tribune by Victorine BIY

Botswana: toward a Tobacco Products Bill to replace the 1992 Control of Smoking Act

From the Botswana Gazette.

South Africa: National Council Against Smoking awarded two grants by the Bloomberg Initiative

The National Council Against Smoking in South Africa has been awarded in May 2010 two 2 year grants (May 2010 to April 2012) by the Bloomberg Initiative for total of $495.722. They aim to promote "policy advocacy for effective tobacco tax and regulatory regimes".

Source: Bloomberg Initiative/What we fund

From the 2009 Annual Report of the Gates Foundation: a commitment to 'Engaging the world online"

A few quotes from the 2009 Annual Report:

"We must do everything we can to make sure that we and our grantees can have the greatest possible impact"

"Connecting with the online community, not only to listen to what people are saying but to participate in those conversations, represent an incredible opportunity and has become a top priority of the Foundation"

"The online community has become essential to our efforts to build awareness and engagement around the issues we work on"

"Join the conversation. We d' love to hear from you"

Malawi: a new tax on cigarettes to curb smuggling

From Afrique en ligne.

Ivory Coast has ratified FCTC on August 13

Here is a link to the Circular Notification communicating the ratification by Cote d'Ivoire of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The Convention will be effective on November 11, 2010.

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.

Malawi and Mozambique: US tobacco leaf company charged of bribery by the SEC

Marty Otanez pointed to this information about 2 tobacco leaf companies charged with bribery. Evoked is bribery in Malawi and Mozambique by Universal. Read below.

Sigareth, the tobacco control comic strip is now available on line

 Sigareth, the comic strip created by Titane Laurent for VISA-Mauritius to promote having graphic health warnings on cigarette packs is now available in a blog format in English and in French. Contact Véronique Le Clézio (at [email protected]) if you want to distribute the strip in your country and organize the accompanying advocacy campaign

Véronique Le Clézio is officially awarded the WHO Director General Special Award

 Below is her report of this ceremony that took place in Mauritius on August 2d. All her congratulations, Véronique. Here is a link to her acceptance speech for a tobacco-free Mauritius.

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.

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%.

Pablo Eisenberg about big philanthropists

An interesting opinion by Pablo Eisenberg. Any relevance to the way grants have been/are allocated and managed to promote tobacco control in Africa?

Peter Eigen and global transparency

From this blog a post about a presentation by Peter Eigen about global transparency. It also concerns civil society. For instance, in relation to the international conference that will take place in September in Niamey, transparency would require the donors to publish their budget.

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.

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?

Newly discovered IDRC funded tobacco control projects: FCA funded for Technical Assistance to the ATSA teams (in August 2009)

This grant of CAD 291.100 is listed as starting August 1st 2009 (duration 12 months) but we only found about it now. The recipients appear to be the Global Smokefree Partnership, FCA and Healthbridge. FCA told us they received CAD 145.000 managed via GSP. Path Canada (HealthBridge since 2006) is also mentioned as a recipient. HealthBridge had partnered with IDRC to apply for the phase 2 of the Gates Foundation in July 2009 (ACS was selected).

The grant is to allow the partnership to help 6 country teams (Cameroon, Eritrea, Ghana, Malawi, Sénégal and Zambia). 

Newly discovered: ACS funded by IDRC to study cigarette taxation in Tanzania

This project was funded (CAD 42.2300) on September 25 2009, for one year. The goal is to demonstrate that increased taxation will reduce consumption without reducing tax revenues, in fact increasing tax revenues. Contact: Evan Blecher, a South African economist now with the American Cancer Society.

Looking at the tobacco control grants awarded by IDRC

The IDRC site has now a search function that allows to list the projects. We used the 'tobacco" keyword to have a look and we made a few discoveries that we share with you in the next posts.

Announcing Round 8 of the Bloomberg Initiative grants program

This information announcing that the Round 8 was now open (deadline August 13) was distributed via various listservers but strangely it is not posted on the site of the Initiative. Apparently the only way to be informed is to register. Why not post this announcement on the site itself?

For a recap of the grants awarded in Africa see here or this map.

The Globe and Mail does not want to blow smoke on Barbara McDougall

In an editorial the Toronto's newspaper defends IDRC and Barbara McDougall. Not very convincing and frankly cynical at the end. Readers, including Dr. Cordell Neudorf, Chair, Board of Directors, Canadian Public Health Association differ (read below).

More about the Gates Foundation's Grantee Perception Report and the importance of communication and feedback

Along the with the presentation of the Grantee Perception Report on the Foundation's site, you can find on the right side of the page an audio recording of a conference call that was organized between Jeff Raikes and other key leaders of the Foundation and a number of grantees. Jeff Raikes reiterates how important he considers obtaining honest direct feedback:

"It is not always easy for us to get honest feedback. Part of it is that the people we want the feedback from rely on us for funding and that can skew their thinking about providing us with feedback... I want to encourage you not to be shy... We want to hear from you directly..."

How does this process to obtain honest feedback apply to the grants awarded to promote tobacco control in Africa? I don't know if anybody involved in the management of those grants was invited to participate in the conference call. Considering the call made by Jeff Raikes in the direction of grantees to contact him about their concerns let us hope this opportunity will be seized.

The Gates Foundation now has a blog

The blog is called Foundation Notes, The official blog of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. As a blog evangelist I can only be delighted and it is certainly one (small) step in the right direction. For now there are no posts about tobacco control but it is a start. Our best wishes for this blog and maybe for many others, targeted to more specific programs including (of course) tobacco control.

In Tobacco Control Journal: IDRC's story as told by Rachel Kitonyo

In the News Analysis section of the June issue of Tobacco Control, Rachel Kitonyo tells the story of IDRC/ATSA as she sees it.

Maybe she could have said the discovery that Barbara McDougall was a board member of Imperial Tobacco was first published on this blog as our Editor was the one who found about this problematic connexion.

Gates Foundation: Grantees Perception Report: "They say we are inconsistent in our communications, and often unresponsive".

An interesting comment made by Jeff Raikes about a report to the Foundation about what its grantees "really" think. In the context of the McDougall's story we are still waiting for a detailed report from the Foundation about what the termination of the grant meant, how it was managed, what evaluation (if any) will be made and made public (if ever)? 

This report and the way Jeff Raikes is taking action are encouraging. If you would like to submit a question for Jeff Raikes, please email [email protected].

Sources: The Chronicle of Philanthropy and The Business of Giving

With the support of the Gates Foundation, WHO wants to open a tobacco control resource center in Africa

Thanks to the funding of the Gates Foundation WHO want to open a tobacco control resource center in Africa. The 5 year budget for this project would be around $3.5 million (on a global grant on $10 million). Deadline to apply: May 31.

Child labour in Sub-Sahara Africa: the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC)

According to the latest report by IPEC, Sub-Sahara Africa has seen an increase in child labour and has the highest incidence of child labour (1 on 4 children). What is/can be done as far as tobacco is concerned?

IDRC increasingly ostracized by health groups worldwide according to the Globe and mail

In this article the Globe and mail explains IDRC's representatives have been ostracized from attending a recent tobacco control meeting in Ghana and rejected as sponsor for a conference in Australia and a special issue by the Lancet. IDRC's argument to deny and/or minimize the conflict of interest of its Chair does not appear to be very convincing.

Open Medicine calls for the resignation of former Cabinet Minister Barbara McDougall

In a strongly worded editorial published today in Open Medicine, the editorial team calls for the resignation of former Cabinet Minister Barbara McDougall, who currently chairs the board of governors of the International Development Research Council (IDRC) and was, until March 2010, also a member of the board of directors of Imperial Tobacco.

A very interesting post about admitting a mistake and learning from it or keeping it all under the carpet

This post is about how Foundations should admit mistakes and learn from them. It describes how Bill Gates dealt with the difficulty of eradicating polio and how it is important no to put a failure under the carpet.

Unfortunately this is what happened with the IDRC grant. It is one thing to announce a grant is "terminated" but what's next? and what lessons if any are learned about the management of tobacco control grants in Africa?

Update about the Bloomberg Initiative grants in Africa

Source: Google Doc May 20, 2010 from the information posted under the Bloomberg Initiative Google Map

See a Google spreadsheet presentation

IDRC's notice about the continuation of the ATSA project: many questions still pending.

IDRC's notice published on their website explains they "are re-allocating other IDRC funds to this priority area in order to honour its grant agreements with researchers in relation to ATSA".

How much money is IDRC "re-allocating"? What are the grants concerned? Can they all be considered as "research"? The notice does not say. Last but not least, will the African advocates accept to continue to work with IDRC while Barbara McDougall still chairs the Board of Governors? 

Amos Safo: Ghana has done very little in ensuring the implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

A team led by Dr. Ahmed E. Ogwell Ouma from the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control was in Ghana last week to assess the country's level of implementation of provisions of the convention.
The team met with the media and the Civil Society Coalition on Tobacco Control among others.
What came up during these meetings clearly indicates that Ghana, one of the 40 countries that took the lead in ratifying the Convention, has done very little in ensuring the implementation of the Convention.

Source: Public Agenda, Editor Amos Safo

IDRC-ATSA's "situational analyses" (pre-publication versions)

The core of the IDRC-ATSA project was to produce "situational analyses" for the 12 countries involved. A pre-publication version of those documents is now available on the IDRC site. Have a look and do not hesitate to tell us what you think. Keep in mind this is the result of a $5.2 million grant.

Sorry for our French speaking readers but it appears that for now all those documents are only available in English.

The "external review" supposed to assess IDRC's work will not be available before October 2010

We have reported about the "external review" initiated by IDRC about their activities in tobacco control during the last 5 years. We inquired to find out when it would be available to the public. It looks like it will not be before October 2010 and in a very limited version (read below Angela Prokopiak's email). Angela is IDRC's communications director.

The IDRC/Gates Foundation story is also in the New York Times but they don't say Barbara McDougall's affiliation with BAT was discovered by Tobacco Control in Africa's blogger Philippe Boucher

The New York Times mentions "tobacco control activists" but fails to identify Tobacco Control in Africa and Philippe Boucher's role in finding out Barbara McDougall's affiliation with Imperial Tobacco Canada. Here is the link to the March 7 initial posting on this blog that was completed by a posting the same day on Globalink, the advocacy listserve of the International Union Against Cancer (access password protected). The information was also available in French. 

Source: We found the information about the New York Times via the very valuable daily e-newsletter of the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

The IDRC/Gates Foundation story is also in the Seattle Times

In the Business of giving blog, where Kristi Heim reports about philanthropy. Thank you Kristi.