A 3-day online training course was held for the 11th cohort on ‘Economics of Tobacco and Tobacco Taxation: Public Health Perspective’ from 28th November to 30th November 2023 on the online meeting platform ‘Zoom’. The training program was jointly organized by BER and BNTTP with technical and financial assistance from Bloomberg Philanthropies and Vital Strategies.
The opening session was inaugurated by Dr. Rumana Huque, Professor of Economics at the University of Dhaka, and Focal person of the Bureau of Economic Research (BER). She talked about the main objective of this online training and the importance of taxation in the field of tobacco control and hoped that the participants would have a great learning opportunity through this training.
On the first day of the training, Nazmul Hossain, Associate Professor of Economics on Tobacco tax: Theory and basic concepts and Sushanta Sinha, Special Correspondent, Ekattor TV on the topic of CSR activities and the unethical interference of the tobacco industry conducted two sessions respectively. On 2nd day, the 1st session on Tobacco tax: Country Experiences” Economics of tobacco: Industry Interference was steered by Dr. Nasiruddin Ahmed, Ex-Chairman, NBR
The 2nd session of the day on ‘Economics of tobacco: Harmful effects of Tobacco’ was conducted by Prof. Dr. Golam Mohiuddin, Project Director of Bangladesh Cancer Society. On the 3rd and last day of the training, the 1st session on and the 2nd session was conducted by Hamidul Islam Hillol, Project Manager, BER conducted the session on National Tobacco Tax Policy Outline
Advocate Syed Mahbubul Alam, Technical Advisor of The Union, presented his remarks at the closing ceremony of the online training. He hoped that the participants would utilize the learning and knowledge gathered from this training session later on in their workplace as well as in the fight against the harmful use of tobacco.
A total of 18 participants participated and completed the training successfully. They were Tobacco control activists, public health researchers, journalists and students. The training, funded by the international development organization, Vital Strategies, was attended by journalists, development workers, tobacco control workers, and university students. They also pledged to work together to increase taxes on tobacco and tobacco products to improve public health.