Tobacco use and secondhand smoke kill nearly 6 million people each year and therefore has been a priority for The Union for more than 25 years. The Union’s focus has been identifying practical strategies for low-income countries to achieve tobacco control and disseminating this information through technical assistance, education and applied research. Read more about tobacco control.
Since 2006, The Union has played an active role in the Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use, working to implement tobacco control interventions in the countries with the highest burden of tobacco-related disease. The Union currently supports tobacco control in 61 countries, and is part of an international network of organisations working to combat the tobacco epidemic.
Read more about the Bloomberg Initiative and the BI grants programme, co-managed by The Union.
The Union works to help countries develop, adopt and enforce comprehensive smokefree legislation. Often, when there are barriers to national legislation, The Union works with sub-national governments to implement local smokefree policies. Read country stories.
The Union works with governments and partners to raise capacity to legislate and enforce comprehensive bans on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship (TAPS). The Union also supports countries to monitor industry activities and address any loopholes in legislation related to advertising in emerging media. Countries where the Union has supported government bans on TAPs include Bangladesh, Nepal, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Ecuador. Read country stories.
The Union advocates for the inclusion of FCTC-compliant graphic health warnings whenever assisting countries to develop comprehensive tobacco control legislation. The Union also promotes legislation to ban misleading descriptors, such as "light" and "mild", on tobacco packages and supports the introduction of plain tobacco packaging. These issues are addressed in The Union's training: Warn about the dangers of tobacco. Read country stories.
The Union works to build cross-ministerial partnerships for tobacco control in order to engage ministries of finance and other ministries, which may not be officially responsible for public health, but whose support is vital for taxation increases. Read country stories.
The Union works with governments to help make the best use of the funds available and to encourage the allocation of further resources to combating the tobacco industry. The Union has developed publications and trainings on preventing tobacco industry interference, especially in regard to public health policy. The Union occasionally supports in-country partners to defended challenges from, or bring legal proceedings against, the tobacco industry.
The Union’s Tobacco Control Scientific Section has a working group dedicated to Article 5.3 of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which deals with protecting health policies from industry interference. Read country stories.
A strong civil society is essential to the sustainability of tobacco control in countries. Civil society organisations are able to monitor the local situation and hold governments accountable for effective tobacco control policy implementation. The Union works with NGOs in over 35 countries to strengthen their tobacco control programmes and facilitate the establishment of civil society coalitions for tobacco control. Read country stories.
Offering help to quit tobacco use is one of the six major MPOWER measures developed by the WHO to implement the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control at a country-level. In accordance with Article 14 (Demand reduction measures concerning tobacco dependence and cessation), The Union advocates simplifying smoking cessation, expanding it widely through tobacco-free health services and working with communities in order to reach more people. In addition, The Union partners with the World Lung Foundation to maintain a mass media resource of smoking cessation and smokefree media campaigns from around the world. Read country stories.
The Union’s Regional Director for Latin America, Gustavo Sóñora, advocated for the judicial system to play a role in the protection of the human right to health at a regional event held in Paraguay.
The Union welcomes the news that China is planning to regulate e-cigarettes to prevent young people and non-smokers from taking up vaping.
Dr Christopher Zishiri, Director of The Union Zimbabwe Office, has a positive view of the future, much of which stems from the confidence he has in his team.
This is an update of the 2013 position paper, reflecting emerging evidence. The Union strongly supports regulating the manufacture, marketing and sales of ECs and ENDS, preferably as medicines.
A background paper based on the literature and international experience in the development of sustainable funding models for tobacco control, to date. Sustainable funding models result in reduced t......
A "how-to" guide for conducting compliance studies that promotes best practice in assessing compliance with smoke-free laws. It will be of interest to a range of audiences, including public health advocates, government officials, and researchers.