The Role of the Commonwealth in Implementing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control

Research by: Dr Ehsan Latif

Dr Ehsan Latif, Program Co-ordinator for the Advocacy and Research unit of The Network for Consumer Protection and the national co-ordinator of the Pakistan Anti-Tobacco Coalition, will be joining the CPSU for three months from January 2004. He is a medical doctor who has a strong reputation for advocacy in a country where smoking is commonplace and tobacco is grown. He will be coming under a Commonwealth Scholarship Commission scheme, only in its second year, for Commonwealth Professional Fellowships, awarded to persons outside academic circles.

While he is with the CPSU, Dr Latif will see how civil society advocacy in the UK interacts with the work of public health bodies, and he will prepare a report for Commonwealth Health Ministers on the role the Commonwealth can play in implementing the recent Framework Convention on tobacco control. The tobacco issue is important in many countries for public health, for its revenue to governments, and for agriculture.

It is hoped that Dr Latif will benefit from networking in the UK, and from seeing how NGO bodies can be strengthened.

While at the CPSU, Dr Latif will be assisted by Richard Bourne, Head of the Unit, and Dr Preeti Patel, a tobacco control specialist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Health.

Persons and organisations wishing to make contact with Dr Latif should write to him at the CPSU, or email him prior to his arrival in London at ehsan_latif@hotmail.com or ehsan@thenetwork.org.pk.

Photographs from the seminar 'The Role of Commonwealth Countries in Implementing the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control' - Institute of Commonwealth Studies 5th March 2004