It has been two months now! Yes, Two months! Over the past two weeks, I have focused on writing and designing the layout for country-level reports on the Status of Implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for two countries-Madagascar and Lesotho. While writing the report for Madagascar, I observed that the tax on the most widely sold brand of tobacco is 76%. “Impressive”, I thought, given the difficulties and politics involved in the implementation of such tax policy. Upon inquiry, I learnt that Madagascar has the best practice in Africa. Madagascar also has health warnings on tobacco labeling and packaging covering more than 50% of the package and labels. The issue of health warnings reminded me of the events in the US where the implementation of graphic health warnings on tobacco packaging and labels were ruled as unconstitutional by the courts. I hope tobacco advocacy groups continue to fight for the adoption of such policies. Policies recommended by the FCTC has been shown to reduce tobacco consumption and in turn, premature mortality from tobacco use.
The Human Resources for Health Unit has also assigned me to write a literature review on health workforce estimation, with the aim of determining if it can be done on the regional or country-level, for use by the Regional Director. Whereas, the Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring and Evaluation Unit asked me to review their annual report and budget as well as create a summary of performance indicators for Budget Centers (Regional and Country offices) to be used in their annual report. All these have kept me on my toes.