•Kitonyo has been advancing tobacco control laws and policy for more than 15 years
•The World No Tobacco Day Awards are given out annually to people in WHO’s six regions for their accomplishments in tobacco control.
Image: COURTESY
A Kenyan lawyer has been recognised by the World Health Organization with a World No Tobacco Day 2020 award for her leadership in tobacco control.
Rachel Kitonyo is a Nairobi-based lawyer and a tobacco control advocate. She is also the McCabe Centre for Law & Cancer’s Regional Coordinator for Africa.
This year’s World No Tobacco Day is being held Sunday May 31.
Over the past six years, Kitonyo has trained more than 150 lawyers and policymakers from low- and middle-income countries on how to use law to prevent and control cancer and other chronic diseases through the McCabe Centre’s unique International Legal Training Programme.
The World No Tobacco Day Awards are given out annually to people in WHO’s six regions for their accomplishments in tobacco control.
“Rachel is a tremendous lawyer and mentor whose energy and integrity inspire everyone she comes into contact with,” Acting Director of the McCabe Centre Hayley Jones said.
Kitonyo has been advancing tobacco control laws and policy for more than 15 years and helped draft and lobby for Kenya’s Tobacco Control Act 2007.
She also founded multiple tobacco control alliances in Kenya and across Africa.
Kitonyo provides technical support to ILTP alumni and to policymakers around the world through the McCabe Centre’s work. The centre is the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control Knowledge Hub on legal challenges.
The lawyers and policymakers Kitonyo supports have gone on to advance tobacco control laws in their own countries.
In 2019, one alumnus successfully defended Kenyan tobacco control regulations at the Supreme Court.
Another helped defend Uganda’s Tobacco Control Act in that country’s Constitutional Court from a legal challenge brought by British American Tobacco.
The lawyer also brings crucial African insight to the McCabe Centre’s capacity-building work. She also draws on lessons learned from Australia’s world-first plain packaging laws.
Based in Australia, the McCabe Centre has worked with more than 20 countries on developing and defending tobacco plain packaging laws.
“Rachel in a passionate leader who has dedicated her career to protecting people from cancer,” Cancer Council Victoria CEO Todd Harper said.
Harper added, “This well-deserved award is a testament to the growing global impact of Rachel’s work and her commitment to supporting alumni of the McCabe Centre’s training programme, in Africa and beyond.”
The McCabe Centre for Law & Cancer is a joint initiative of Cancer Council Victoria, the Union for International Cancer Control, and Cancer Council Australia.
The McCabe Centre is also a WHO Collaborating Centre on Law and Non Communicable Disease.
The McCabe Centre’s legal training programmes are supported primarily by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, while funding to support the Knowledge Hub is provided by the Australian Department of Health.
Edited by P.O