Lome, Togo — Africa Business News (ABN) digital reporter, Hannah Viviers, hosts Africa Tobacco Control Consortium's (ATCC) Rachel Kitonyo and Leon Louw in a television exchange called "The Great Tobacco Debate". The televised discussion centers on economics of tobacco control in Africa. This program marks an important step forward in a media strategy devised by ATCC and Consortium partner, Framework Convention Alliance, in response to the International Tobacco Growers Association's attack on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
For more details and to see the video, please visit the ATCC Resource Center.
Click here for a direct link to the ABN video. Please leave your comments on the video to let ABN know that they need to bring a larger spotlight and more reporting on tobacco control and tobacco industry interference in Africa.
Read an insightful and persuasive Op-ed by Tosin Orogun, Media Advocacy Officer for the Africa Tobacco Control Regional Initiative. Mr. Orogun ponders the question, "Who wants the tobacco business dead in Africa?"
About the ATCC:
The African Tobacco Control Consortium is a coalition of public health organizations focused on preventing a tobacco epidemic in Africa. The ATCC is coordinated by the American Cancer Society in partnership with the Africa Tobacco Control Regional Initiative, Africa Tobacco Control Alliance, Framework Conventions Alliance, Campaign for Tobacco-Friee Kids, and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. This five-year project is funded primarily through an $8 million grant awarded to the Society by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The American Cancer Society also contributes significant financial and human resources to this initiative.
The African Tobacco Control Consortium Project aims to promote evidence-based tobacco control programs and policies in sub-Saharan Africa to prevent an epidemic of tobacco-caused death and disease in the region. The Society supports the African partners through project management training, advocacy and research training, and connecting and empowering the African tobacco control community. The focus is on developing and implementing key policies outlined in the World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control including: tobacco tax increases, advertising bans, graphic health warnings, and smoke-free public places.
ATCC’s work is concentrated in 10 African countries:
- Benin
- Botswana
- Cameroon
- Congo-Brazzaville
- Gabon
- Gambia
- Senegal
- Sierra Leone
- Uganda
- Zambia
The ATCC grants program, managed by the Society, is designed to meet the unique needs of each of these countries as they identify and implement programs to meet their tobacco control priorities.
Through the work of our consortium partner organizations, the ATCC is involved in a total of 23 African countries.
About the African Business Network Digital:
ABN Digital is a division of ABN Media Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pan Africa Business Media Holdings (PABMH), the company which established CNBC Africa, the continent’s first and only pan-African real-time financial and business television network. ABN Digital aims to create an online platform for the business, markets and financial story of Africa.
On ABNDIGITAL.com users can access Top Business Stories from Africa, browse through video clips of in-studio interviews, crossings to market commentators throughout Africa as well as packaged business features from Cape Town to Nairobi, from Johannesburg to Lagos, from Abuja to Windhoek.
ABN is committed to creating an online environment that allows Africa access to its own financial news and information, which will assist in making informed decisions when it comes to businesses and investments on the continent.
As Africa begins taking centre stage in the expansion plans of developed nations, so too will ABN be ready to shine a spotlight on the world’s darkest continent.