A National Tobacco Control Programme helps governments to develop a structured approach to tobacco control in their countries. It ensures that they have planned and budgeted for tobacco control and makes sure that the strategies chosen in a specific country are appropriate to reduce the tobacco use in the country.
For the last 10 years, the CTCA has been lobbying governments on the continent to establish National Tobacco Control Programmes or NTCPs to mainstream their tobacco control activities.
In Niger, where the CTCA provides tobacco control capacity support through its grant from the ACBF, there has been some success in developing an NTCP.
The NTCP was developed by the Tobacco Control Focal Point in Niger in collaboration with the CTCA technical assistant. The document was developed in the course of 2020.
The NTCP has a package of interventions in line with the WHO FCTC as well as as plans on how to improve the institutional and governances arrangements around tobacco control in the country. It also has an monitoring and evaluation framework, the financial implications of implementing the programme. And lastly, it will have a plan on to ensure the plan is sustainable.
The strategies in the NTCP are in line with Universal Health Care prioritises as well as the Sustainable Development Goal targets.
The NTCP will now need to be validated by the Health Minister before it can be enacted into law.