American Cancer Society Helps Build Framework for Smoke-free Initiative in North Africa

On January 8-10, 2008, members of the American Cancer Society international tobacco control team met in Morocco with key stakeholders from Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco to discuss the new North Africa Tobacco Control Leadership Academy "Smoke-free at Work" initiative. This initiative, sponsored by a grant from the Pfizer Foundation, seeks to strengthen tobacco control policy measures at the countrywide level by engaging the business community, youth organizations, and nongovernmental organizations in the goal of smoke-free worksites, with particular focus on the Maghreb region. Cassandra Welch, the American Cancer Society’s director of international tobacco control programs, gave presentations on the project as well as on youth empowerment initiatives. The international tobacco control team also met with three in-country consultants from Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria to discuss work on a needs assessment to gauge tobacco control and youth advocacy efforts in each of the three identified countries.