Nigeria-based non-governmental organisation, The Renevlyn Development Initiative (RDI), has trained journalists in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on how to access credible data in upscaling their tobacco control reports with specific attention on how they can explore the rich information in the Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI) developed by the Development Gateway.
The training had prominent tobacco control experts including Professor Patrick Shamba – Technical Advisor, TCDI Programme, DRC; Caleb Ayong, founder, Vital Voices for Africa (VVA); Achieng Otieno, founder, Being Africa; Oluchi Joy Robert, a UK-based tobacco control expert; and Philip Jakpor, executive director of RDI, the convening organisation.
In his welcome words, Executive Director of RDI, Philip Jakpor, explained that the training is the first that the organisation is organising with support from Development Gateway, and that in conceiving it, RDI realises that the media is key not only in keeping the public informed as part of its watchdog role, but also in eliciting robust discourse that ultimately translate into policy responses and actions.
Jakpor said that the indispensability of the media to tobacco control is exemplified in the amount of money that the tobacco industry expends annually to market its products using media channels.
He revealed that the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the U.S. recently revealed that in that country alone the amount that the tobacco industry spent on visibility activities including cigarette advertising and promotion increased from $7.84 billion in 2020 to $8.06 billion in 2021. In 2022, it was $8.3 billion.
He revealed that tobacco companies have also been linked to social media influencers who covertly promote tobacco products, using subtle company campaigns.
He went on to say that, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) just like other countries on the continent, smoking is a major public health problem with significant impact on morbidity and mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
He lamented that tobacco control in DRC hardly makes the news, even as he added that the training is premised on the need for more robust and educative reports on tobacco control coming from journalists in the DRC.
He reminded the participants that policy makers rely on what they read or hear or watch to be able to make laws that are rooted in facts and that the task of ensuring the right information gets to them is shouldered by the media.
Professor Patrick Shamba, Technical Advisor, TCDI Programme in DRC, while speaking on the current state of tobacco control in the Democratic Republic of Congo, explained that smoking is a major public health problem in the DRC with significant impact on morbidity and mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
Shamba revealed that tobacco control in the DRC is hampered by lack of specific regulatory measures, lack of detailed provisions for the effective implementation of the 2018 framework law, tobacco industry interference, illicit trade in tobacco products, and difficulties in controlling and regulating the parallel market.
To address these issues he said that the media has the task of raising public awareness,
Informing the public about the dangers of tobacco and promote preventive measures, Monitoring industry actions and the expose of tobacco industry’s attempts to interfere in public policy. The media must also support legislative initiatives, and report on progress and challenges in implementing smoke-free legislation, among others.
He called for collective engagement, especially greater collaboration between government, civil society and the media to achieve effective tobacco control measures. He also wants the development of detailed regulatory measures; and setting up monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.
The don also took the participants on a tour of the TC Dashboard of the Development Gateway explaining that the platform wharehouses data and information cutting across six themes – Prevalence of Tobacco Use, Tobacco Control Legislation, Tobacco Industry Interference, Tobacco Taxation, Morbidity, and Illicit Trade. The dashboard is regularly updated with new information as it becomes available.
In his intervention on Using Data to Make Tobacco Control Stories Relevant, Caleb Ayong, founder of Vital Voices for Africa (VVA), said that data is information collected, stored, and processed for analysis or decision-making. They can be numbers, text, images, or any other form of recorded details.
On their relevance, he stressed the quality of being closely connected or appropriate to a given topic or situation and he added that data determines how useful or meaningful something is in a specific context.
He told the journalists that in presenting their facts it must be relatable and speak to emotions.
For example, when it is said that approximately 25,000 die every year from tobacco-related deaths in DRC, it is relatable to the number that fills a stadium.
On the kinds of stories that expose the industry he said that poverty caused by tobacco, corruption, health emergency, environment and human rights violations top. He also cited various case studies to drive home his point.
Picking up from there in a presentation on How Tobacco Industry Targets Young People in Africa, Achieng Otieno, founder, Being Africa, said that rising tobacco use especially among African youth is influenced by urbanisation and western cultural imports.
Otieno also said that tobacco and nicotine use have devastating conasequences especially on the health of the smoker and represents a growing burden on healthcare systems across the continent.
He revealed that the youth demographics show that Africa has the world’s largest youth population, making it a prime target for tobacco marketing. There is also a market shift from the west to Africa as a result of declining sales there. The industry is also adopting aggressive marketing tactics, often targeting vulnerable populations.
Weak enforcement of tobacco control laws also allow for continued exploitation of loopholes.
He revealed some of the strategies of the industry. They include introduction of flavoured products, social media and street advertising as well as product visibility.
In her presentation on Tobacco and Conflict, Oluchi Joy Robert, a UK-based tobacco control expert, said that the tobacco industry’s history of profiteering from war and crisis spans centuries. Citing an opinion piece published in the British Medical Journal blog in October 2024, she said that the report noted that there are no winners in war, just terrible pain, destruction, and fatalities.
Nevertheless, the tobacco industry continues to make money by taking advantage of humanitarian crises and human suffering, making money in war-torn places while leaving consumers hungry, homeless, and displaced.
Oluchi explained that since World War I (1914-18), tobacco companies have targeted troops with free cigarettes, direct mail, branded merchandise, and “welcome home” events, thereby creating a new market and normalising smoking.
In World War II (1939-1945) cigarettes were included in soldiers’ rations, further solidifying smoking’s popularity.
With the onset of the Cold War (1947-1948) tobacco companies started targeting developing countries, expanding their markets.
She explained that with more recent conflicts in regions like the Middle East and Africa, tobacco companies have been exploiting weak regulations and targeting vulnerable populations. Their approach has only been modified with the distribution of tobacco products and nicotine to soldiers, promotion of tobacco products in countries weakened by conflict, involvement in illicit trade, etc.
She revealed that after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, many large transnational corporations, including tobacco companies, said they would pull out of Russia but Philip Morris International (PMI), British American Tobacco (BAT), and Japan Tobacco International (JTI) did not, prioritising profits over human rights and health.
In May 2024, JTI announced that it would continue its operations in Russia to satisfy investors, despite previously announcing that they were leaving. In 2022, the two companies JTI and PMI earned a whopping $7.9 billion and $7.4 billion in profits, respectively, and paid hundreds of millions of dollars in corporate taxes to Russia – Philip Morris $206 million and Japan Tobacco $193 million respectively.
She also pointed out that, in Ukraine, PMI controls 24 % of the cigarette market.
After temporarily suspending production in 2022, it continued to supply its cigarettes to Ukraine from eight factories located outside the country and by partnering with Imperial Brands which still operates in Ukraine.
In 2024 the UK and Ukraine government agreed to provide cigarettes, nicotine sachets and electronic cigarettes to Ukrainian soldiers who came to train across the Channel. The products were donated by an anonymous international tobacco company, and distributed to the soldiers as part of their rations.
An unnamed source claimed that smoking “poses a smaller threat to these brave soldiers than fighting Putin’s illegal invasion of their country.”
Going further, she said that, in Syria, the civil war since 2011 has led to forced displacement of more than 12 million people disrupting agriculture, yet the country remains a tobacco exporter. In 2023, the World Bank database recorded Syrian exports of cigars or cigarettes to importers Lebanon, Jordan and Qatar.
Also, Yemen, which has been in conflict for nine years, and facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, imported 3,361,440Kg worth of cigarettes in 2019, mostly from the UAE.
Then British ambassador to Yemen attended the opening of a tobacco manufacturing plant jointly owned by the Yemeni government, cigarette manufacturer Kamaran and BAT in late 2019, as revealed by the University of Bath Tobacco Control Research Group.
For journalists in the DRC she said that their area of interest should be that two major tobacco corporations – BAT Congo and Pan African Tobacco Group (PTG) with subsidiary Congo Tobacco Company – operate in the country and across six other countries in sub-Saharan Africa.
The corporations have significant presence and influence in the DRC tobacco market. Additionally, the DRC government faces challenges in regulating the tobacco industry, with issues such as illicit trade and the need for stronger tobacco control policies.
She urged the journalists to take up the following issues:
The tobacco industry exploits vulnerable situations, including conflicts, to market and promote their products, Targeting of vulnerable populations especially youth, women, and low-income communities with aggressive marketing tactics, Illicit trade, weak regulations, and tobacco in humanitarian settings, among others.
The training was supported by the Development Gateway, an IREX Venture.