Development of Reports on the Economics of Tobacco Taxation and Tobacco in India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Pakistan, and Egypt

Cigarette smoking and other tobacco use impose a large and growing public health burden, currently accounting for about 5 million deaths per year. Currently, about half of the deaths caused by tobacco are in low and middle-income countries.  While generally declining in high-income countries, tobacco use is rising in low and middle-income countries. Given these trends, tobacco use will cause approximately 10 million deaths per year by 2030, with an increasing share of the public health burden from tobacco falling on low and middle-income countries.  Given this, the Bloomberg Global Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use is engaged in an integrated set of efforts to reduce tobacco use by:  increasing tobacco taxes and prices (and curbing smuggling);changing the image of tobacco use by banning advertising and promotion of tobacco products and supporting counter advertising and other public education efforts; implementing and strengthening policies to protect non-smokers from exposure to tobacco smoke; encouraging other evidence-based policy interventions; and supporting cessation efforts by tobacco users. This program builds on the unprecedented opportunity created by the adoption and implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and targets the low and middle-income countries that account for the majority of the world’s smokers. In order to achieve these goals, country-level evidence on the economic impact of tobacco control policies and reductions in tobacco use will be critical, particularly for increases in tobacco taxes.  The proposed project will take a first step in providing this evidence by developing country-specific reports on the economics of tobacco taxation and tobacco for five of the Initiative’s priority countries:  India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Pakistan, and Egypt.  These reports will rely on existing country-specific, regional, and global evidence and will follow the outline developed at the Tobacco Economics Consultation hosted by the Bloomberg Foundation on April 28, 2007.  In addition, the proposed project will provide a point of access to key commercial databases for teams working on other reports, coordinate and plan regional workshops for the teams working on these reports, and lead efforts to maximize the consistency and quality of all commissioned reports.