Tobacco Industry Interference Index – What It Means for Secure Track and Trace

The 2019 Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index has recently been released. The concept is not a new one and borrows from the methodology originally developed by the South East Asia Tobacco Control Alliance to assess the extent to which the tobacco industry was unduly influencing governments in Asia.

The report confirms what we already know: how the tobacco industry works strategically to delay and defeat tobacco control measures using various tactics. Governments have identified tobacco industry interference as the most serious barrier to passing strong tobacco control measures – and yet better controlling this lies almost entirely in government’s own hands.

In support of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, a set of recommendations were adopted to protect governments from industry interference.

The Interference Index measures the extent to which governments have adopted those recommendations, across a number of dimensions: tobacco industry involvement in policy development; the use of corporate social responsibility (CSR) campaigns to influence government relationships; the securing of preferential treatment for the industry; the extent of unnecessary interaction between government departments and the tobacco industry; the transparency of government engagements with the industry; and the extent to which there may be a conflict of interest on the part of government officials vis-à-vis the tobacco industry.