• March 28, 2024

Farmers want seat at FCTC table

 Farmers want seat at FCTC table

The president of the International Tobacco Growers’ Association, Francois van der Merwe, has called for farmers to be given a seat at the table whenever issues that might affect their livelihoods are being discussed.

In an opinion piece published in Business Day (South Africa), van der Merwe said that in June last year the World Health Organization director general Dr. Margaret Chan had told a summit on measurement and accountability in health: “In this day and age, where transparency is such a big commodity, there is no other option but to have transparency and accountability”.

But he went on to say that through its Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) the WHO had spawned an organization that adopted strategies and tactics increasingly at odds with principles of openness, fairness and accountability.

‘Through deliberate exclusion and collusive, opaque and undemocratic practices, the FCTC, under the mantra of protecting public health, has started promoting measures that cut across areas such as national agriculture policies, taxation, trade and many other areas beyond its remit or expertise,’ he said. ‘This can create more harm than good.’

Later in his piece, van der Merwe said he wanted to extend a public invitation to Chan to visit tobacco farmers in Africa or anywhere else in the world.

‘We have nothing to hide; on the contrary, we seek an open, inclusive and transparent dialogue with the WHO’s FCTC,’ he said.

Van der Merwe’s piece is at: http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/2016/04/06/who-has-eschewed-transparency-in-its-fight-against-tobacco.