SEATCA

Half of Southeast Asia’s smokers will die from diseases caused by tobacco use. More than 30 million will die by middle age. If tobacco use remains unchecked in these countries, they will face even higher tobacco-related mortality and lower productivity. 

The Southeast Asia Initiative on Tobacco Tax (SITT) is a five-year project on tobacco tax policy in Southeast Asia. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and implemented by the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA), SITT uses globally proven evidence to encourage governments in Southeast Asia to adopt more progressive tobacco tax regimes that will lower smoking incidence while at the same time increasing government revenues that can further assist national health programs.

Ten percent of the world’s smokers–around 125 million people–are in Southeast Asia. And still, in this region of 575 million people, of whom more than 275 million are living on no more than US$2 per day, tobacco use continues to rise. Indonesia alone experienced a sevenfold increase in cigarette consumption within a period of little more than 20 years, going from 33 billion sticks consumed in 1977 to 187 billion by year 2000.

The diseases for which tobacco use is an important risk factor – cancers, respiratory diseases and cardiovascular diseases – are also undermining countries’ ability to tackle other epidemics and public health challenges.

The Southeast Asia Initiative on Tobacco Tax (SITT) project is a multi-site and multi-pronged tobacco control initiative across the Southeast Asia region. The project specifically targets five low-income countries in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Philippines and Vietnam.  SITT is SEATCA’s program for intervening specifically on the area of tobacco taxation in the region. SEATCA works with its partners to facilitate an exchange of best practices and policies from around the world, to strengthen the implementation of tobacco tax policy in line with the WHO FCTC Article 6.

Higher taxes deter tobacco use among the young and the poor. Tax increases also directly benefit governments through increased revenues, which can be used for tobacco control and other important health and social programs. 

Even as the tobacco market shrinks, higher taxes would still boost government coffers and can be used to establish and sustain national tobacco control programs, as well as assist the small segment of tobacco workers that will move out of the industry.

Other aspects of SITT: to support the development and implementation of prominent graphic health warnings to tobacco product packaging in Indonesia through research and technical assistance; and to disseminate the lessons learned by SEATCA to other existing and emerging regional tobacco control alliances in the developing world. 

Partners outside the region include the American Cancer Society and Duke University in the USA, and the Nossal Institute for Global Health at the University of Melbourne in Australia.  

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