Côte d’Ivoire continues its ascent as West Africa’s tobacco control beacon

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On 3 April, before dozens of journalists and civil society representatives, the 2025 Tobacco Industry Interference Index was presented at the World Health Organization’s (WHO) offices in Côte d’Ivoire. As the report reveals, Côte d’Ivoire now ranks ninth in Africa and 29th globally for monitoring tobacco industry interference in public health policymaking.

According to tobacco control experts, this ranking shows that Côte d’Ivoire is becoming an effective performer in the fight against tobacco. Crucially, the Index found no signs of corporate social responsibility activity by tobacco companies in the country over the past five years, with this anti-tobacco front reflecting the strong collaboration established between Côte d’Ivoire’s civil society and public health authorities.

Encouragingly, the Ivorian government is already taking further steps to enhance its regional tobacco control leadership. In late March, the Ministry of Commerce held a training initiative to strengthen the country’s capacity to detect fraud and improve traceability in the illicit tobacco market – a scourge the tobacco industry has historically fueled across West Africa. Combined with its new, WHO-compliant tobacco traceability system and measures such as tobacco tax increases, Abidjan is offering the region a strong blueprint for the region to follow.

Côte d’Ivoire’s rise into the African top 10 and global top 30 on tobacco industry interference monitoring is no accident. This ascent reflects a government that has been willing to act decisively, including by rejecting tobacco industry proposals on taxation, raising tobacco taxes from 49% to 70%, and bolstering action against smoking in public places. Abidjan’s resolve has equally been visible in its push for plain packaging to protect adolescents, its refusal in 2021 to adopt the European traceability system criticised by NGOs as ineffective and non-compliant with the WHO FCTC Protocol, and its firm resistance to Big Tobacco lobbying.

In a promising sign for the future, the country’s progress is particularly impressive among teenagers, where smoking rates have dropped from 13.7% to 4.5% in recent years. Behind this decline lies a broad policy effort combining smoke-free public spaces, plain packaging and steep tax increases with a full advertising ban and large graphic health warnings, placing Côte d’Ivoire among a small group of countries pursuing the strongest anti-tobacco measures since 2022, according to the WHO.

Abidjan's efforts notably earned it the prestigious ‘WHO Anti-Tobacco Prize’ in June 2025, awarded in recognition of its national tobacco control programme’s (PNLTA) leadership in advancing tobacco control domestically and across Africa. As part of this ambitious programme, Côte d’Ivoire passed a decree in 2022 establishing a new anti-trafficking tobacco traceability framework, crucially requiring a system compliant with the WHO Protocol and fully independent of tobacco industry influence.

This firm commitment to a Protocol-compliant system carried practical consequences. By holding that line, Côte d’Ivoire effectively forced Swiss firm Dentsu Tracking out of the tender process, a provider with historic links to the tobacco industry and its discredited Codentify technology. Moreover, in awarding the public-private partnership (PPP) traceability contract in May 2024 to private sector provider SICPA Côte d’Ivoire SA, the Ivorian government struck at the industry’s long-running effort to infiltrate African traceability systems and shield the illicit trade from which it profits.

Guided by the leadership of President Alassane Ouattara, Côte d’Ivoire has notably chosen a proven anti-smuggling tobacco traceability solution that helped shape the WHO Protocol. Importantly, this system meets the Protocol’s core requirement of independence from the tobacco industry, whose long history of distorting traceability systems has shown why such safeguards are indispensable. Moreover, by adopting a solution that combines physical and digital technologies, the Ivorian government has reinforced its standing as one of the region’s clearest examples of WHO-aligned tobacco control.

Building on this strong foundation, Abidjan is now intensifying efforts against illicit tobacco both at home and across the region. From 23 to 24 March, the city hosted a multi-country workshop devoted to ratification of the WHO Protocol, organised by the Ministry of Health with support from the WHO and the FCTC Secretariat, bringing together around fifty African stakeholders to push tobacco supply-chain control higher up the regional agenda. On the second day, Abidjan gave concrete expression to its regional leadership by launching a series of training sessions on SICPA’s SYSTRAC traceability system. Held at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Le Plateau and aimed at 150 agents, the programme was designed to strengthen their capacity to detect fraud and trace illicit tobacco products. Led by the Directorate General of Domestic Trade in partnership with SICPA Côte d’Ivoire SA, it forms part of a broader drive to modernise anti-fraud tools in the tobacco sector.

For local officials, the rationale is clear. Kponé Bérenger, regional director for Côte d’Ivoire’s Grands Ponts region, welcomed the rollout, suggesting that in an economy increasingly shaped by digitalisation, more sophisticated enforcement tools are essential to push back against illicit tobacco. More broadly, the ambition is to equip field agents with digital tools that improve control on the ground, curb illicit products, protect the national economy and, in doing so, reinforce economic governance while helping secure public revenues.

Viewed against the wider regional situation, Abidjan’s multi-country training sessions make a vital point: Côte d’Ivoire can, and should, serve as a model for the ECOWAS in confronting both the illicit tobacco trade and the industry’s wider interference. That leadership matters because, although the WHO Protocol was adopted in 2012 and entered into force on 25 September 2018, only 22 African countries are currently covered, leaving much of the continent exposed to cheaper illicit products, lost tax revenues and organised criminal networks.

Moreover, the 2025 Tobacco Industry Interference Index suggests that the broader African picture remains deeply troubling. Across the 20 countries assessed, persistent tobacco industry interference in public health policymaking continues to alarm the African Tobacco Control Alliance, which warns that this trend amounts to “a direct threat to the health, sovereignty and future” of tobacco control efforts on the continent.

Zambia offers one telling example, with the Index noting that a long-awaited tobacco control bill has again been delayed. Equally troubling, ATCA points to the widespread acceptance of tobacco industry corporate social responsibility activities in countries including Nigeria, South Africa and Zambia, where government officials have publicly praised tobacco companies and partnered with them on projects ranging from school renovations to water access schemes.

Amid these ongoing challenges from the tobacco industry, Côte d’Ivoire’s encouraging progress demonstrates that stronger tobacco control is both credible and achievable in West Africa when governments work closely with civil society and invest in serious enforcement. Looking ahead, the real question is whether its neighbouring countries are prepared to match this level of resolve and turn a proven set of WHO-backed measures, from independent traceability to high taxation, into a genuinely regional response.

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