Tobacco Control in Africa - TCA

What about African children working in tobacco fields?

WNTD 2020 is centered exclusively on the risks posed to children by smoking tobacco and how the tobacco industry targets them as future customers. But what about the children the tobacco industry exploits at the very beginning of the process, in the tobacco fields? Once more they are completely ignored :(

Here is a 2019 dossier published in the magazine Geographical about Child Labour and the tobacco industry. Also this article in The Guardian by Sara Boseley in 2018 ("supported" by Vital Strategies) or this 2014 article. On November 1, 2019 the US suspended its imports from Malawi.
Plus a lawsuit filed against BAT here and as told in The Guardian. Even more recent, this article about 'Shifting from tobacco growing to alternatives in Malawi?".

 

World No Tobacco Day 2020: exclusively via twitter?

WNTD 2020 seems to have been organized by WHO exclusively via twitter with the hashtag #tobaccoexposed. How will that choice play in Africa where twitter still does not appear to be the dominant way to communicate via social media? Plus, is social media the most effective way to share information?The 2020 campaign is a definite rupture with the previous more traditional campaigns organized by WHO that basically centered around one poster and not much else. This year the campaign looks completely virtual and I could not find any trace of a paper based item. No explanation is given for this choice. I was also surprised to see that all the pages devoted to the past WNTD campaigns were now not accessible. Strange. 

World No Tobacco Day 2018: Tobacco and Heart Disease

Read the announcement on the WHO site. Until March 9 to propose candidates for the awards.

New WHO statement about the Foundation for a Smoke-Free World

Here is (and find below) a statement from WHO dated September 28. It comes after the statement distributed on September 19  by the FCTC Secretariat.

Dr Matshidiso Moeti is the new WHO Regional Director for Africa

Acceptance Speech by Dr Matshidiso Moeti, new WHO Regional Director for Africa, at the 136th Session of the WHO Executive Board Geneva – January 2015

See below.

World No Tobacco Day 2014 awards - the winners for Africa

Every year, WHO recognizes individuals or organizations in each of the six WHO Regions for their accomplishments in the area of tobacco control. This recognition takes the form of WHO Director-General Special Recognition Awards, World No Tobacco Day Awards, and in 2014, two WHO Director-General's Special Recognition Certificates.
Here are the African Region awardees
Dr Kangoye Larba Théodore, Burkina Faso
The House of Peoples Parliament, Federal Democratic Republi of Ethiopia
Ms Dorcas Jepsongol Kiptui, Republic of Kenya
Mr Badarou  Agaly Maiga, Republic of Mali
Professor Abdoulaye Diagne, Republic of Senegal 
Mr Vuyile Dlamini, Kingdom of Swaziland

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.

WHO FCTC reporting and implementation database

Here allows you to read the implementation reports, county by country.

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

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...

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)?

WNTD 2013

More info here.

African Region Awardees for World No Tobacco Day 2013

Every year, WHO recognizes individuals or organizations in each of the six WHO Regions for their accomplishments in the area of tobacco control. This recognition takes the form of WHO Director-General Special Recognition Awards, World No Tobacco Day Awards, and in 2013, one WHO Director-General's Special Recognition Certificate.
A WHO Director-General Special Award went to Paul Kasereka Lughembe, from the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the picture with Véronique Le Clézio who received the same award in 2010.

African Region awardees went to the following: Vision for Alternative Development (Ghana), Mr Ibrahima Kalissa (Association guinéenne de lutte contre le tabagisme, Guinea), Ms Diabate Mariam Berthe (Association de lutte contre le tabac et autres stupéfiants au Mali, Mali), Mr Mayaki Mamane (Direction de l’hygiène publique et de l’éducation pour la santé, Ministère de la santé, Niger), Mr Jean Christophe Rusatira (National University of Rwanda, Rwanda).
These six award winners will be recognized for their outstanding contribution to tobacco control in their respective countries

World No Tobacco Day 2013: Ban Tobacco Advertising, Promotion and Sponsoring.

The theme chosen for World No Tobacco Day 2103 (May 31, 2013) is Ban Tobacco Advertising, Promotion and Sponsoring.

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?

Mobile Health (mHealth) for tobacco control

This is a new WHO initiative aiming at using smart phones to promote tobacco control. The projects mentioned center mostly -for now- around cessation but they also involve smoke-free places and combatting illicit trade. There could be apps for each tobacco control issue. African developers wanted and think about what to communicate about.

Winners of the 2012 World No Tobacco Day Awards in the African Region

Every year, the World Health Organization recognizes individuals or organizations from its six regions for their accomplishments in the area of tobacco control such as research, capacity building, promotion of policy or legislation and advocacy to enhance tobacco control. The World No-Tobacco Day 2012 Award Winners from the African Region are:

• Brufut Lower Basic School: the Republic of the Gambia;
• Dr Toure Fatoumata Diallo: Association de lutte contre le tabac et autres stupéfiants au Mali (ALUTAS MALI), République du Mali ;
• Coalition Against Tobacco (CAT: the Federal Republic of Nigeria;
• Dr Abdoul Aziz Kasse: Ligue Sénégalaise contre le Tabac (LISTAB), République du Sénégal ;
• Dr Deo Sekimpi: Uganda National Association of Community and Occupational Health (UNACOH), the Republic of Uganda;
• Mr Tinashe Munjoma, Meikles Hotel: the Republic of Zimbabwe.

These six award winners will be recognized for their outstanding contribution to tobacco control in their respective countries

Uganda: Inauguration of the CTCA

Visiting the site of the Tobacco Free Initiative about the inauguration of the Center for Tobacco Control in Africa on November 1, we find this link to the presentation given by Cynthia Lewis,  senior program officer for the Gates Foundation.

What about the FCTC implementation reports?

Did your country send the required FCTC implementation reports? Check here.

FCA supported "shadow reporting" in 2010 in Ghana. We could not find a link to the report. What about the other countries?

The answer from the European Commission about our request for information: the announced contract is not yet signed

I received yesterday an email from Mr Thomas Kirchner (see below the content). He explains that "this contract does not yet exist. It is currently under preparation and foreseen to be signed before the end of this year." Therefore there are no documents available. I remain interested in a detailed breakdown of the budget as what was provided raised a certain number of questions that have not been answered. As for an eventual commitment to detailed communication and transparency, the eventual requirements seem limited but one should wait until one can see the actual contract. Mr Kirchner concludes: "Within EuropeAid, Unit D4 (Education, Health, Research and Culture) is in charge of this contract with the WHO and will be available to assist you should you require further clarifications. The Head of Unit responsible is Elisabeth Feret."

Uganda: plenty of pictures of the capacity building workshop on Facebook

Here. Any question?

Uganda: Dr. Possy Mugyenyi urges the government to pass a tobacco control law

Dr. Possy Mugyenyi, previously manager of the Uganda National Expansion Programme on Immunisation and now manager of the newly created Center for Tobacco Control in Africa made a presentation on September 21 at the All for Health One Health conference . See the pdf documents here page 1 and page 2. Read also on Facebook about the visit and 3 day capacity building workshop conducted by ATCC.

World No Tobacco Day 2012: the theme chosen is Tobacco industry interference

The World Health Organization (WHO) has selected  "tobacco industry interference" as the theme of the next World No Tobacco Day, which will take place on Thursday, 31 May 2012.

Another job opening in Kampala for the WHO project of the African Tobacco Control Center

The deadline to apply for this position (12 months) as Project Officer for the African Tobacco Control Resource Center (ATCRC) is September 19. I wonder who are the Senior Project Officer and the Director mentioned in the ad. For some background about the project, this interview with Vinayak Prasad in 2010. The link to the previous ad, for a Tobacco Control Specialist with ATCRC (deadline September 15).

Honest Feedback, Questions to the Gates Foundation

Honest Feedback, Questions to the Gates Foundation is a small book (80 pages) by Philippe Boucher, now available in paperback via the internet print on demand publisher Blurb.com and also as an e-book via Amazon-Kindle. Just click on Blurb or Kindle and get a copy.
Philippe Boucher -who also manages the blogs Tobacco Control in Africa and Vers une Afrique Sans Tabac- shares his thoughts about the promotion of tobacco control in Africa and the role played by the Bloomberg Initiative and the Gates Foundation. A rare independent point of view, as 'not many speak their mind to the Gates Foundation'. The book is dedicated to the Foundation's CEO, Jeff Raikes who calls regularly for honest feedback. See also this interview of Boucher.

 

Makerere University: Advert for a Tobacco Control Specialist

Here is the ad, as a Google doc. Deadline to apply: September 15, 2011 (3 year contract). The position is part of the WHO Africa initiative project. By the way, the ad on the CTFK website about a Director Africa position is still on. It was initially posted in March.

WHO's performance to be independently evaluated?

An independent performance evaluation, reforms for more transparency and accountability? Read Margaret Chan's final speech at the General Assembly. The implementation of those goals is another story. What about detailing how the $9.9 million given by the Gates Foundation are used?

WHO: Dr. Margaret Chan's speech on the occasion of the 100th International Women's Day on 8th March 2011

Signaled by Mary Okioma, Executive Director of Women for Justice in Africa (Nairobi)

Address by Margraret Chan to WHO staff on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day (Geneva, Switzerland, 8 March 2011)

Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

In 1968, the Philip Morris tobacco company introduced Virginia Slims. This was a cigarette designed, packaged, and aggressively marketed to young professional women. The ads usually contrasted an old-fashioned sepia-tinted photo of household drudgery or women doing farm work with the image of a fashionable, liberated, young and, of course, very slim female smoker. The ad campaign was fabulously successful and its slogan became famous: You’ve come a long way, baby.

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?

 

Scorecards and the importance of counting for transparency, accountability, fairness and effectiveness: tools for the Gates Foundation?

The governance and development blog of the Worldbank refers in this post to this very interesting document  (pdf) about the importance of counting and budget transparency, something that does not apply to tobacco control grants to Sub-Sahara Africa.

World Health Organization accountability profile as assessed by One World Trust in 2006

What has changed since this 2006 report?
Source: One World Trust

Where does the tobacco control community stand now about IDRC?

One year ago it looked like IDRC was under a boycott because of the presence at its helm of Barbara McDougall  a former Imperial Tobacco Director. One year later the World Health Organization and the American Cancer Society organize in Johannesburg a meeting to praise IDRC's work. What gives?  Has the conflict of interest that was seemed so shocking disappeared? Is an 11 months suspension an adequate sentence and is IDRC now to be reintegrated fully within the tobacco control community? What independent evaluation has been done and published to explain how IDRC has used the Gates Foundation money? Is IDRC now an acceptable partner to promote tobacco control?

Deaths related to secondhand smoke exposure in Africa

Deaths related to secondhand smoke in Africa are estimated in a study published in the Lancet about global deaths linked to SHS. 

Across the countries of Africa assessed, an estimated 43 375 deaths due to passive smoking occurred in children, compared with 9514 in adults. The authors say: "Two-thirds of these deaths occur in Africa and south Asia. Children's exposure to second-hand smoke most likely happens at home. The combination of infectious diseases and tobacco seems to be a deadly combination for children in these regions and might hamper the efforts to reduce the mortality rate for those aged younger than 5 years as sought by Millennium Development Goal 4."

For full Article and Comment, see: http://press.thelancet.com/smoking.pdf

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.

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.

Resource Center for Tobacco Control in Africa: deadline extended to July 15

This is just a reminder: the deadline for applying to this project funded by the Gates Foundation via WHO has been extended to July 15.

Transparency Officers to promote and implement transparency (and communication)

Because transparency needs to be a proactive process and will not happen without people in charge of making it happen. 

Source: opengov/ideascale via googling for transparency officer. 

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.

WHO creates new pictorial health warnings database

The World Health Organization has just published an online database of pictorial health warnings. The database is categorized by topic and by Party to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

World No Tobacco Day, May 31 2010: women as target of the tobacco industry

 The World Health Organization has chosen to focus the communication for this WNTD about the marketing of tobacco products to women. Read the press release and see all the posters.

Update about the grants awarded by the Gates Foundation to tobacco control programs in Africa

The 3 grants awarded since 2008 by the Gates Foundation to promote tobacco control in Africa amount to about $22,2 million. At the bottom the detailed list of the projects funded by IDRC (30% of the budget).

April 30, 2010: The World Health Organization announces it wants to open a tobacco control resource center in Africa. It would be funded for 5 years by $3.5 millions from the Gates Foundation grant.

April 12, 2010: Statement by the Gates Foundation about the termination of the IDRC grant. 

February 3, 2010: ACS announces it will manage a $7 million grant from the Gates Foundation (apparently awarded in November 2009) with an African Consortium. Duration of the program: 5 years. 

December 4, 2009: Official press announcement of the grant by WHO.

August 2009: The Gates Foundation awards a grant of $9,994,093 to WHO. Duration 5 years.

December 2007: The Gates Foundation awards a grant of $5.274.477 to IDRC to promote tobacco control in Africa. This was -by far- the largest grant ever awarded to promote tobacco control in Africa. This is supposed to be a 2 year program. Read the notes about the meeting in Ottawa on January 15/16 2008 and see below the detailed list of the projects funded with 30% of the budget.

Discours de Margaret Chan, Directeur Générale de l'OMS à l’occasion du cinquième anniversaire de l’entrée en vigueur de la Convention-cadre de l’OMS pour la lutte antitabac

Une critique en règle de l'industrie du tabac.

Tosin Orogun joins Africa News

Tosin Orogun posted this article on Africa News. This is his first contribution to this network of African reporters. it is about Margaret Chan's speech for the FCTC's 5th anniversary. She said: "Like my predecessors, I am not on speaking terms with the tobacco industry, but I will say this: we've come a long way, bullies." 

Rendez-vous with Vinayak Prasad, Senior Adviser for WHO's Africa initiative

Rendez-vous with Vinayak Prasad, Senior Adviser for WHO's Africa initiative (this cyberinterview was initially produced for the blog Rendez-vous)

Thank you Vinayak for taking the time to be with us today.

May I ask you to introduce yourself by giving us some background (educational, professional) information about yourself and by telling us how, when and why you got involved in tobacco control.

Vinayak Prasad: : Let me thank you for giving me this opportunity to discuss the WHO project for Africa. My Background: I joined the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative in Dec 2009 to work on the Gates Africa project.

I was working with the Government of India for the past 20 years in different capacities in the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Health. Some of my initial years were spent in working with Indian Customs, working on trade facilitation and strengthening capacity to tackle illicit trade.

Reporting on the implementation of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

Each country that signed the FCTC has tu submit regular reports about the way the treaty is implemented. WHO is collecting the reports and making them available on line. Unfortunately the documents are on a pdf format that makes them much less user-friendly. Still it is worth visiting and it would be worth having comments by advocates about their assessment of the situation in their country. For instance I read the report (in French) about Cameroon and I wonder what our friends from Cameroon think about it.

WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic 2009

Here.

Transparency and accountability: the key concept and practice of Proactive Disclosure

The Canadian Government introduced and started implementing in December 2003 the key concepts and practices of proactive disclosure. Here is an example of implementation for Health Canada: it includes travel and hospitality expenses (although usually only for a limited number of executives who are not the ones traveling most), contracts over $10,000.
How about incorporating such proactive disclosure into best practices to be implemented for the management of tobacco control grants?

WHO officially announces the $10 million grant of the Gates Foundation to promote tobacco control in Africa

We had previously informed our readers of this grant awarded in August. The press release does not provide details about the way the funds will be managed, the type of governance that will be -eventually chosen-, what African NGOs will eventually participate, how transparency and accountability will be implemented, issues that are very important and were specifically addressed by the Gates Foundation in the $7 million project awarded to the American Cancer Society.

Contacts to know more are mentioned at the very end of the press release.

L'OMS annonce officiellement la subvention de 10 millions de dollars de la Fondation Gates pour promouvoir la lutte antitabac en Afrique Sub-Saharienne

L'OMS officialise maintenant la subvention attribuée au mois d'août par la Fondation Gates comme nous l'avions annoncé précédemment. Pas de détails sur la manière dont seront gérés ces fonds, quelle gouvernance, quelle participation de quelles ONGs, quelle transparence, etc.

A suivre, en contactant les personnes mentionnées tout à la fin de la dépêche.