What is CRAFT

Center for Research and Advocacy to Fight Tobacco (CRAFT) is the Bangladeshi tobacco industry monitoring center established at PROGGA in January 2020 with support from the WHO FCTC Secretariat through its Knowledge Hub for Art 5.3, Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control (GGTC).

Purpose

The purpose of CRAFT is to monitor the tobacco industry activities related to implementation of WHO FCTC Article 5.3 in Bangladesh and the region.

Area of Work

To monitor the activities of the tobacco industry and its front groups that are aimed at preventing, delaying, and undermining public health policies concerning tobacco control;

To promote and facilitate open access to data, information, and research on the activities of the tobacco industry and its allies, and explore media opportunities to ensure coverage of and reveal the tactics of the tobacco industry;

To cooperate with governments, policy-makers, and decision-makers to inform them on the findings of the monitoring activities, to raise their awareness on tobacco industry efforts to influence policymaking, and participate in the development and implementation of policies concerning Article 5.3 of the Convention.

Background

The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) is the first international treaty negotiated under the auspices of WHO. It was adopted by the World Health Assembly on 21 May 2003 and entered into force on 27 February 2005. It has since become one of the most rapidly and widely embraced treaties in United Nations history.

In the Preamble of the Convention, Parties recognised the need «to be alert to any efforts by the tobacco industry to undermine or subvert tobacco control efforts and the need to be informed of activities of the tobacco industry that have a negative impact on tobacco control efforts».

Article 5.3 of WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) obliges each Party to protect their public health policies from interference by the tobacco industry. Its implementation guidelines and COP decisions (FCTC/COP6(14) and FCTC/COP7(8)) recognize the need to monitor implementation of Article 5.3, including the monitoring of tobacco industry interference and measures to counteract them.

The Government of Bangladesh signed the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) in 2003 and ratified the treaty the following year.

With support from the WHO FCTC Secretariat through its Knowledge Hub for Art 5.3, PROGGA-Knowledge for Progress leads and is in charge of ‘Center for Research and Advocacy to Fight Tobacco (CRAFT)’ in Bangladesh.