perspectives
DISCUSSIONS ONLINE

Is tobacco a development issue? Report from an email discussion

Summary

What are the consequences of cigarette consumption for the world's poorest regions? Is tobacco control a development issue? In the run-up to the negotiations of the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), we asked participants to consider these and related questions. The email discussion was organised by id21 Health, a research reporting service based at the UK Institute of Development Studies.

Over 90 participants from many countries and diverse backgrounds joined the discussion list. In this report we summarise the discussion on the main themes. The debate covered a broad range of topics, focusing particularly on:

• challenges of tobacco control in developing countries
• relationships between tobacco consumption, poverty and health
• issues concerning major tobacco-exporting countries
• tobacco taxation
• behaviour of tobacco companies.

Contributors also tackled issues relating to the policy-making process in tobacco control and identified important questions for future interdisciplinary research into tobacco and development issues.

Introduction

id21 Health's email discussion on tobacco and development aimed to bring a broader development perspective to the tobacco control debate and to identify gaps in our knowledge in this area. The participants were based in many different countries and included international and national policy-makers, health professionals, tobacco control agencies, NGOs and researchers from diverse academic disciplines. The discussion ran over six weeks from 24 September to 2 November and was divided into three phases addressing the following questions:

Phase 1: Is tobacco control a development issue? What are the costs and benefits of tobacco control for developing countries? What new perspectives can the development community bring to the tobacco control debate?

Phase 2: What are the gaps in our knowledge on the development impact of smoking and tobacco control? What new country-specific data are needed and what are the international issues that should be addressed? What are the opportunities for cross-disciplinary research? How can we ensure that research reaches policy-makers?

Phase 3: How will the FCTC affect developing countries? Should the FCTC incorporate a broader development perspective? How can development professionals contribute to the ongoing negotiations?

In this report we summarise the debate on the main themes addressed in the discussion, focusing particularly on the need for future research. The discussion was broad, including contributions on tobacco, poverty and health, tobacco-exporting countries, taxation, tobacco companies, the policy-making process and suggestions for future research. The full text of all the messages is available online at www.id21.org/tobacco.