The World No Tobacco Day is celebrated on the 31st of May each year and it aims to raise awareness on the harms caused by tobacco products to people, public health, communities and the environment. Every year, the theme of World No Tobacco Day addresses a specific issue related to tobacco and its industry. This year’s theme tagged – “Tobacco: Threat to our environment” aims to highlight the impact of tobacco on the environment – from cultivation, production, distribution and waste. It also aims to expose tobacco industry’s effort to “greenwash” its reputation and products by marketing themselves as environmentally friendly.
According to WHO, with an annual greenhouse gas contribution of 84 megatons carbon dioxide equivalent, the tobacco industry contributes to climate change and reduces climate resilience, wasting resources and damaging ecosystems. Around 3.5 million hectares of land are destroyed for tobacco growing each year while 4.5 trillion cigarette butts pollute the environment every year. The harmful impact of the tobacco industry on the environment is vast and growing, adding unnecessary pressure to our planet’s already scarce resources and fragile ecosystems., especially in the developing countries.
This is because 90% of all tobacco production are concentrated in the developing countries causing an uneven impact on different socioeconomic groups.
R-DATS Consulting (R-DATS) supports the celebration of World No Tobacco Day and puts emphasis on raising awareness on the deleterious effect of tobacco use on health, and specifically on cancer cases and deaths. That is why R-DATS has partnered with Development Gateway (DG) to lead and conduct primary research on the use of shisha, hookah, and waterpipe tobacco products in Nigeria as part of The Tobacco Control Data Initiative (TCDI) in the country. This Initiative is funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and spans across six countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This project aims to achieve two (2) main objectives:
- Supply the Nigerian government with improved access to country specific data that will inform better tobacco control policy design and implementation.
- Design and develop national online websites that contain data and research related to tobacco control.
This study is currently ongoing across and employs a mixed-method research approach to generate the most policy-relevant and actionable data.
