The TI exploited the COVID-19 pandemic with a multi-
pronged tactic to entice, persuade and coerce governments
towards weaker public health policies. Many governments,
made vulnerable by the pandemic, freely accepted and
endorsed charity from the TI, when such donations
often come with strings attached, and compromised on
policies. Instead of removing benets to the industry, many
governments made decisions that beneted the industry,
particularly in lowering or not imposing taxes and delaying
legislation or its implementation.
Many government ofcials met with industry executives
in a non-transparent manner and were persuaded to
allow this business to function as “essential” during the
pandemic lockdowns. Conict of interest situations
rendered ofcials vulnerable to accept proposals from the
industry and view it as a “partner” of economic recovery
rather than a burden to public health and society.
This Index, the third in the series, documents the status
of government efforts in implementing the World
Health Organization (WHO) Framework Convention
on Tobacco Control (FCTC) Article 5.3. Article 5.3 and
its Guidelines outline how governments can protect
public health policies from commercial and other
vested interest of the TI and those who further its
interests.
4
Governments that followed these Guidelines
were better able to safeguard their tobacco control
efforts during the pandemic, while governments that
didn’t found their efforts being undermined, delayed or
defeated by the industry.
The rst Index in 2019 reviewed 33 countries,
5
the
second Index reviewed 57 countries
6
and this third
Index reviews 80 countries from Africa, the Eastern
Mediterranean region, Latin and North America,
Europe, South and Southeast Asia and the Western
Pacic region. It ranks the countries using the same
questionnaire and scoring method as the ASEAN Index
developed by the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control
Alliance (SEATCA).
7
This Index is based on publicly available information
on TI interference in countries and their respective
governments’ responses to this interference for the
period of January 2019 to March 2021 for 23 new
countries, and January 2020 to March 2021 for the 57
countries updating their reports. Since the information
was collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, many
of the key ndings are directly related to pandemic
decision-making. The countries are ranked (Figure
1) according to total scores provided by civil society
groups, which prepared their respective country indices.
The lower the score, the lower the overall level of
interference, which augurs well for the country. The
Summary Table (p.44) provides disaggregated scores for
each country.
This Index shows that while no country has been
spared from TI interference, even in the most
challenging of times some governments acted boldly
to address the interference. Eighteen countries
have made improvements in protecting their health
policies, especially in applying greater transparency, not
collaborating with the industry and adopting guidelines
to provide a procedure for interaction with the industry.
03
Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index 2021
