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The 2023 Africa Tobacco Industry Interference Index, highlighting Uganda’s outstanding performance with the lowest interference from the tobacco industry in Africa. Botswana and Ethiopia also excel in resisting such interference.

Uganda is positioned within the top three performing nations in Africa, boasting the lowest Tobacco Industry Interference Index among the 18 countries examined. Botswana and Ethiopia lead this list as the countries experiencing the least interference from the tobacco industry.

This significant achievement was unveiled during the launch of the second edition of the 2023 Africa Tobacco Industry Interference Index, which took place in a virtual event on Wednesday, October 18, 2023. The event was attended by a diverse group of stakeholders, including tobacco control advocates, government officials, the media, and various other parties.

The second edition of the Africa Tobacco Industry Interference Index encompasses 18 African countries: Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Mauritius, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Uganda.

This comprehensive report is a collaborative effort between the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) and the Africa Centre for Tobacco Industry Monitoring and Policy Research, with support from the Global Centre for Good Governance in Tobacco Control (GGTC).

The Africa Tobacco Industry Interference Index serves as a regional survey assessing how governments respond to tobacco industry interference and their commitment to safeguarding public health policies, as stipulated by the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC).

Article 5.3 of the WHO-FCTC mandates that parties protect public health policies from the influence of the tobacco industry, recognizing the profound impact of tobacco-related complications, resulting in eight million deaths annually.

During the report’s release on Wednesday, Dr. Arti Sigh, a public health physician and faculty member at the School of Public Health at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, commended Mauritius for swiftly implementing plain packaging of tobacco products in compliance with their tobacco control legislation.

However, the report highlights a disheartening aspect: Uganda is one of the African nations where tobacco companies have interfered through corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. The report points out that Uganda, along with South Africa, Cameroon, and Mozambique, are among the surveyed countries where tobacco companies have assisted in purportedly combating illicit tobacco trade. Notably, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) accepted a cigarette destruction machine from British American Tobacco (BAT) for this purpose.

On a positive note, the report indicates that both Uganda and Ethiopia had no recorded instances of a conflict of interest involving government officials and the tobacco industry during the reporting period. Conflict of interest arises when vested interests compromise the objectivity of actions, judgment, and decision-making.

Article 5.3 of the WHO FCTC provides a framework for governments to prevent such conflicts, and Uganda’s enactment of the Tobacco Control Act in 2014 has led to significant progress in implementing this act.

Prof. Bontle Mbongwe, winner of the WHO World No Tobacco Day Award in 2021 and Executive Director of Anti-Tobacco Network-Botswana, highlighted Botswana’s tobacco control law, which protects against tobacco industry interference. Passed in 2021, this law significantly contributed to Botswana’s exemplary performance. Prof. Mbongwe stressed the importance of local-level research, evidence-based policymaking, and capacity building for government officials.

Dr. Mary Assunta, lead author of the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index, emphasized the need for using the index to expose how major tobacco companies push their agenda in Africa and to hold governments accountable for not respecting their commitments under the WHO FCTC.

She warned against the normalization of CSR, which provides a gateway for tobacco companies to advance their interests. Leonce Sessou, Executive Secretary of the African Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA), encouraged tobacco control advocates to leverage the index for advocacy in their respective countries.

The 2023 Africa Tobacco Industry Interference Index reveals improvements in Burkina Faso, Botswana, and Ethiopia compared to 2021, while Cote d’Ivoire and Zambia showed marginal improvements. Eight countries experienced deterioration in their rankings, with Kenya recording the most significant decline.

The Index presents numerous recommendations for governments, including the denormalization and prohibition of socially responsible activities by the tobacco industry, maintaining a strong stance against tobacco industry interference, expediting the passage of pending tobacco control laws, enhancing the capacity of tobacco control stakeholders, generating evidence for knowledge transfer, promoting alternative livelihoods to tobacco farming, adopting a code of conduct for interactions with the tobacco industry, and banning the sale of single sticks and duty-free tobacco products, among other measures.