Tobacco Control Strategy Planning

Strategy Planning for Tobacco Control Advocacy


	Question 1. What do we want most, now, from our advocacy efforts?


	Overview Letter

	Introduction to the Series

	Advocacy Introduction

>	Our Advocacy Goals

	Our Target Audience

	Messages Likely to Move Our Target Audience

	Messages That Speak to the Brain and the Heart

	Effective Messengers for Our Target Audience

	Effective Media for Delivering Our Messages

	Getting the Media's Attention

	Making Sure the Media Communicates Our Messages

	Acknowledgments

	Download PDF Version

The ultimate goal of our advocacy efforts—as an essential element of our broader policy advocacy efforts—is to achieve effective, comprehensive, enforced tobacco control laws and policies.

Long-term Goals

Fortunately, a science-based, authoritative vision of ideal comprehensive national tobacco control policies and laws is now readily available. The World Health Organization's historic international treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), provides a clear road map for tobacco control advocates and lawmakers. The health ministers of 191 nations have adopted this treaty.

Lawmakers now have available model laws to implement the FCTC policy. The International Union for Health Promotion and Education (IUHPE) has been developing just such model laws. Their website is: http://www.iuhpe.org/.

The Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) has produced a document that encourages the "Region of the Americas" to adopt the FCTC. This booklet, entitled "The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control: Strengthening Health Globally", also provides guidelines for implementing FCTC policies. It is available online at: http://www.paho.org/English/HPP/HPM/TOH/tobacco.htm

The World Health Organization's Tobacco Control Legislation: An Introductory Guide discusses key strategic decisions involved in framing legislation (See chapter 5, "Approaching Legislation: Strategic Choices"), and explains the process of developing legislative text (See chapter 7, "The Drafting Process").

This means that strategic planners today have ready access to the best long-term advocacy goals for effective comprehensive national tobacco control laws and programs.

Links to Information on the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

Framework Convention on Tobacco Control
http://www.who.int/gb/fctc/

Framework Convention Alliance
http://www.fctc.org/

International Union for Health Promotion and Education
http://www.iuhpe.org/

Tobacco Control Legislation: An Introductory Guide
Chapter 13 of this World Health Organization publication explores the process for implementing the Framework Convention, and the treaty's relation to other standards of international law. http://www5.who.int/tobacco

Specific Short-term Objectives

Mapping out your long-term goals does not automatically lead to an effective advocacy strategy. Advocacy planners also need to set ambitious but realistic short-term objectives.

You can set these objectives by looking at three areas:

how well you understand the political environment
the extent of public awareness of the hazards of tobacco use, and
the degree of public support for strong tobacco control laws.

The more specific and well-defined your objectives, the more concrete and effective your strategic planning can be.

In the early stages of tobacco control, advocacy strategies might need to focus on intermediate steps, such as generating support among influential forces in the society—individuals or groups who can influence the government officials who have the ultimate power to act.

For example, tobacco control leaders in many countries have come to see how important it is to encourage doctors and other respected health care providers to become advocates for tobacco control laws and regulations. This issue is the focus of the ACS/UICC Strategy Planning Companion Guide #2, Engaging Doctors in Tobacco Control.

Resistance and Barriers

At different stages, advocates may face barriers that range from public ignorance, confusion caused by tobacco industry propaganda, to a smoking-addicted Health Minister, a misinformed Finance Minister or a Prime Minister, whose political party has become dependent upon tobacco industry political campaign contributions

Before you develop your advocacy strategies, it is very important that you clearly identify the specific barriers you now face and then set your advocacy priorities to address the most immediate of these barriers.

Especially in countries where the tobacco control movement is just beginning, tobacco control advocates usually have limited human or financial resources. With greater resources, advocates could extend their efforts beyond narrowly focused strategies. They could also build public support by educating the general public about the need for and effectiveness of tobacco control legislation. But when resources are few, we must choose the most effective strategies. Advocates must focus on the most immediate obstacles and opportunities.

Focusing on the Immediate Objective

Here is an example of why it is important to focus your advocacy strategies and resources on the most critical tactical objective.

In 2002, the Indian Coalition for Tobacco Control undertook a strategic-planning process. Their top policy objective was to enact a comprehensive national tobacco control law.

At first, the Coalition members looked at a wide range of advocacy initiatives, such as educating the general public about the need for the legislation, and lobbying all members of Parliament to support it. But they recognized that the Coalition had too few human or financial resources to support such broad strategies.

So they began to focus on their immediate problem: the cabinet's delay on the good tobacco control legislation the national government had already proposed. A parliamentary committee had held hearings on that bill and had reported favorably in support of it.

But the cabinet had yet not tabled the bill for action by the full parliament. This delay might have been the result of other legislative priorities. Another possibility was that tobacco lobbyists had persuaded key decision makers to delay—perhaps indefinitely—final parliamentary action on the bill.

So the coalition members decided to concentrate their limited resources on pressuring the government to push the bill forward. Included in these initiatives was an electronic Death Clock that displayed and counted off the number of citizens who had died from tobacco-caused diseases since the date the government first proposed its bill. This advocacy initiative was skillfully designed to gain media attention both to tobacco's toll on human lives and the specific cost in lives lost of the government's failure to bring its bill to the Parliament for action.