Senegal: Cicodev calls for better funding for tobacco control

In Senegal, the Pan-African Institute for Citizenship, Consumers and Development (Cocidev Afrique) is currently conducting a communication and advocacy campaign to increase tobacco taxation. Cicodev highlights the burden that smoking places on Senegalese public finances and the lack of resources allocated to public health.

The Pan-African Institute for Citizenship, Consumers and Development proposes the creation of a parafiscal tax on tobacco products that would be directly allocated to financing Senegalese public health in general, and the fight against smoking and non-communicable diseases in particular.[1].

Insufficient budget for health

According to Cicodev, only 4.7% of the state budget in Senegal is devoted to public health, far behind the 15% recommended during the Abuja Declaration, more than twenty years earlier, at a time when African public authorities became aware of the need to strengthen the resources allocated to the fight against AIDS, malaria, or tuberculosis. However, Senegal is not the only African country in this situation of insufficiency, since at the end of 2020, only two states had achieved this objective of devoting 15% of the budget to health.[2].

Smoking, a major cost for public authorities

According to a study conducted by the Consortium for Economic and Social Research (CRES), a think tank Based in Dakar, the social cost of smoking is estimated at 122 billion CFA francs (185 million euros) per year for Senegalese society, of which 74 billion are for health costs alone. For comparison, tax revenues associated with tobacco products represent 24 billion CFA francs per year (36 million euros), a deficit of 98 billion (149 million euros). Despite the economic burden that tobacco consumption represents in Senegal, the Ministry of Health only allocates 25 million CFA francs per year, or less than 40,000 euros.

The strong interference of the tobacco industry in Senegal

At the end of 2021, the Senegalese League against Tobacco had already urged the Senegalese Ministry of Health to significantly increase taxation on tobacco products, with the dual objective of reducing the prevalence of tobacco use by 10% and of providing funding to a fund to finance the fight against tobacco use.

The Senegalese League also alerted the public authorities to the need to combat lobbying by the tobacco industry, which sees developing countries as a new market to offset the decline in consumption that has been underway for several decades in industrialized countries. Despite the adoption in 2014 of a law prohibiting in principle any contact between public authorities and the tobacco industry, Senegal is not completely immune to attempts at interference from manufacturers. Thus, in 2021, a decree allowed Senegal to adopt the Codentify system for the traceability of tobacco products, even though it comes directly from cigarette manufacturers, whose involvement in illicit trade has nevertheless been established.

A regulatory system developed in Senegal

Despite funding shortfalls, Senegal remains one of the most advanced countries in Africa in the fight against smoking. In recent years, the country has significantly strengthened its regulations to combat the tobacco epidemic. Thus, since 2016, the country has banned the consumption of tobacco products in public places, the sale to minors, or the marketing of tobacco within 200 meters of a school or hospital. Similarly, the regulations prohibit the sale of individual cigarettes and any form of advertising, direct or indirect, in favor of tobacco. Finally, 70% of the surface of tobacco packets are now covered with health warnings (image and text), showing the risks that smoking poses to health.

FT

[1] Senegalese Press Agency (APS), A campaign by Cicodev Afrique for the creation of a parafiscal tax dedicated to financing health, 07/02/2023, (accessed 08/02/2023)

[2] Africa Renewal, Public financing of health in Africa: 15 % of an elephant is not 15 % of a chicken, 10/2020, (accessed 08/02/2023)