Building strategic partnership with the Media has been one of ATCRI's core objectives in the African region. The Africa Journalists Network became the approriate channel for rallying media support for tobacco control in the region, while providing the platform for a continuos process of improving the capacity of journalists to report on current issues in tobacco control and foster rich cross-border partnership with other journalist network groups in other countries within the region. 
ATCRI's concept and model of a journalist network thrives on the need to create an institutionalised mechanism for continuous media action, link for journalists to interface with the tobacco control community, and the need to perpetuate and sustain high-level of public awareness, while enagaging in other strategies such as developing action plans for monitoring and gathering facts on tobacco industries' activities for use in specialised reports aimed at causing policy-shift, and generating tailored public debates on key issues and arguments around tobacco in the region.
Currently, through combined effort and collaborations, the Africa Journalist is networks are increasing and membership growing.

The International Legal Consortium at the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) and the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) on October 23rd, 2009, opened a Legal Workshop for Tobacco Control Lawyers in Africa. The meeting which took place in Nairobi, Kenya with over 50 lawyers from over 32 countries present, was developed to provide the platform for discussing common concerns and issues related to tobacco control in Africa, sharing information on effective tobacco control legislation and shaping the goals, objectives and activities of a Lawyers network for the region.

Although deliberations at the meeting was around the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), which is the first global public health treaty negotiated under the auspecies of the World Health Organization for the regulation of tobacco product manufacturing, sales and promotion, Lawyers at the meeting had the first unique opportunity to interact and share experiences on the situation in their respective countries, while brainstorming on strategies for improved collaboration for effective tobacco control legistlations and litigation.

http://atca-africa.org/version_anglaise/index.php?theme=lawyers

The African Tobacco Situational Analysis (ATSA) is a two-year initiative of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) with the support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The initiative was launched in December 2007, and after a competitive review process (through a Call for Letters of Intent), 12 Sub-Saharan African country teams were selected for funding. The overall objectives of the initiative are to understand the critical determinants of success for tobacco control in Sub-Saharan Africa, and to inform the development and implementation of tobacco control strategies in Africa.

In addition to the existing 12 countries, ATCRI has a 10-month project of mini ATSA in Togo, Benin Republic, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Botswana and Uganda, which takes the number of countries to 18. As part of the ATSA project, ATCRI is coodinating a new communication strategy for Africa around the initiative, by developing new concepts for improved and co‐coordinated unified communication in the region. The new communication strategy now provides for mechanisms that will enable ATSA teams to enhance communication, share experience and new findings as the ATSA project progresses in selected countries, with ATCRI as the hub.

Click here to visit the ATSA web portal Online: http://atsa.atcri.org