Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

Tobacco Control in Africa: People, Politics and Politicies, a personal opinion

In his foreword, Dr. Akinkugbe talks of a "magnus opus, a monumental work", while for Evan Blecher, it "sets new standards for tobacco control research on the continent".
Written by IDRC's grantees, published (paid for) by IDRC, this is an hymn to IDRC: self-inflated, self-congratulatory, self-serving, it conveniently ignores the many problems and failures linked to the ATSA program. Considering the amounts invested, the final result is incredibly small and of very limited use. A very inconvenient and unacceptable assessment for all those who were/are part of the IDRC system. The book is a PR smokescreen for a very defective and wasteful project.

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.

A question worth asking IDRC's David Malone's: what did IDRC do with the $3.505.535 that were not allocated to African grantees? Is it a good practice? Is it acceptable?

On December 2007, the Gates Foundation awarded $5.274.477 to IDRC to promote tobacco control in Africa. At the very same time, Barbara McDougall who was a Director of Imperial Tobacco Canada was promoted to the position of Chair of the IDRC Board of Governors. Under her chairmanship the African grantees received (according to our calculation) CAD 1.768.942 that is 33.5% of the grant awarded by the Gates Foundation. What happened to the 66.5% that were not allocated to African grantees?

Barbara McDougall, Chair of the Board of Governors of IDRC is also a Director of Imperial Tobacco Canada. Is that acceptable?

On January 30 2007, the Foreign Minister of Canada announces the nomination of Barbara McDougall to the IDRC Board of Governors. The official press release mentions she belongs to the Board of "several Canadian corporations", names a few but not Imperial Tobacco Canada: this is strange as the site of the Toronto's Law Firm Aird & Berlis where Barbara McDougall is an Advisor used to mention Imperial Tobacco in her bio (this mention has since been erased). Imperial Tobacco Canada is since 2000 a wholly owned subsidiary of British American Tobacco (BAT).

Imperial Tobacco pleased with growth in Africa

That's according to their interim report for 2009: "

we continued to grow volumes and shares in the majority of our markets in the nine months to June.

Our cigarette brands performed strongly in the region with Davidoff volumes up 21 per cent, Gauloises up 10 per cent, Gitanes up 33 per cent and Fine up 25 per cent.

We are maintaining our growth momentum in Africa..."

Nigeria: Ruling On N366 Billion Suit Against Tobacco Firms for March 6

Ola Ajayi writes about the conclusions of the parties.  Babatunde Irukera, counsel to ERA said, "the suit is about an industry that is killing people and they must take responsibility."

Source: AllAfrica

When Imperial Tobacco became number 2 in Sub-Saharan Africa

In April 2001 Imperial Tobacco bought 75% of Bolloré's Tobaccor. The balance was acquired in October 2004.
From Imperial Tobacco Website.

Empêcher l'installation d'Imperial Tobacco à Maurice

Merci de signer la pétition contre l'implantation d'Imperial Tobacco.

Imperial Tobacco veut s'implanter à Maurice

L'Express du 13 juin rend compte des discussions entre la branche franco-malgache d’Imperial Tobacco et Hemrajsingh Ramahotar, le directeur général du Tobacco Board à Maurice.