African states rally for greater tobacco control
Baboki Kayawe | Wednesday October 21, 2015 16:55
Uganda’s principal medical officer, who is also the tobacco control focal person in that country, Sheila Ndyanabangi, said this at the just ended Legacy Tobacco Industry Documents Training in Kampala.
“We need to form a network of African tobacco control movement because the same tactics that the tobacco industry uses in Uganda, they will use in Kenya and elsewhere in the continent,” she said.
She added that the tobacco industry’s agenda comes a long way, and it was very clear that the industry sold poison to its victims. Ndyanabangi said ‘the truth documents’, which were until recently secretive documents of the tobacco industry, were a good resource in tobacco control as the industry has admitted that the product was dangerous. She urged the tobacco control movement to exploit this knowledge.
“There is no excuse for not going all the way in tobacco control efforts,” she said.
“All people involved in tobacco control need to equip themselves on how to optimally use the documents to strengthen their cases.
“Knowledge can be there, but not being able to use it is another story.”
She called for all corporate social responsibility initiatives to be done with consultation with various countries’ ministries of health, and that no agreement be entered into without health ministry’s knowledge.
Countries such as Botswana, which are yet to pass tobacco control legislation, were encouraged to be familiar with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) as the tobacco industry has an argument that it conflicted with other World Health Organisation treaties. This was said by Dorcas Kiptui, Kenya’s head of tobacco control under the ministry of health.
“It is not true that the FCTC is in conflict with any treaty. African countries must hold the tobacco industry accountable for the environmental, social and economic impacts of tobacco because the industry does not want to acknowledge those while it does not dispute the health impacts of their product,” she said.
The FCTC is the first public health treaty and a comprehensive tool for effective and sustainable tobacco control.
Moreover, she stressed that it was the responsibility of tobacco control movement to highlight those issues, while government was responsible for educating citizens on the cross cutting effects of tobacco consumption.
The industry, she said employed many tactics to undermine, especially sections of the FCTC that addresses sponsorship, promotion, marketing and taxation as well as 100 percent smoke free areas. “Countries like Botswana, Gambia and others that are yet to pass the tobacco laws can take a leaf from how Uganda and Kenya tackled the issues,” she said.
Botswana’s acting head of tobacco control, Ephraim Rapalai said, “the legacy training workshop was highly informative. I found the training to have come at the right time since it was about accessing information about the tobacco industry’s tactics to delay countries efforts in coming up with FCTC compliant legislation.”
Rapalai said the information could be used to unveil tobacco industry truths in order to reduce resistance to the passage of the upcoming legislation.
Botswana has signed and ratified the FCTC, which obligates the country to, among others, protect people from exposure to tobacco smoke, raise tobacco prices and taxes in order to reduce consumption as well as require pictorial warnings cover occupying at least 50 percent of display areas of all tobacco product packages. The local tobacco control bill, said to be at an advanced stage, is expected in Parliament next month. Government officials, tobacco control civil societies and health journalists from Botswana, Gambia, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda attended the legacy library workshop. The Centre for Tobacco Control in Africa under the auspices of the School of Public Health- Makerere University hosted the event. The overall objective of the training was to build a team of policy makers, advocates and reporters with capacity to mitigate tobacco industry interference.