As health systems around the world struggle and national healthcare budgets are stretched, the IPU works closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) and national parliaments to shift the narrative: health is not a cost, but an investment. “Health is an investment in people, productivity and long-term prosperity,” IPU Secretary General Martin Chungong told a 2025 workshop on health taxes in Yaoundé, Cameroon. “Tobacco taxes, in particular, offer a unique opportunity to reduce consumption, prevent disease and generate domestic revenue.”
Despite Cameroon’s announced ambition in 2023 to achieve universal health coverage, healthcare is a luxury many of its citizens simply cannot afford. The Yaoundé workshop, organized by the IPU with the Network of Parliamentarians for the Fight against Tobacco and Narcotics of the Parliament of
Cameroon (OXYGENE Network), advanced national discussions on the use of tobacco taxes to fund universal health coverage. In Cameroon, tax from tobacco sales is less than half the level recommended by WHO.
“If universal health coverage is seen as ensuring that people without exception have full access to quality health services when and where they need them without facing financial hardship, by taxing tobacco, we shall be taking a leap forward in the achievement of better healthcare,” OXYGENE Network President Ngalle Daniel Etongo told the meeting. In line with SDG 3 – to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages – the IPU has long campaigned to reduce non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by taxing the products that often cause them. Our 2022 report Saving lives
and mobilizing revenue: A parliamentary action guide to health taxes provides a road map for countries such as Cameroon to generate much-needed additional revenue while reducing consumption of these products.
The one-day workshop, which attracted more than 150 MPs and staff, focused on how to advocate, legislate and oversee tobacco taxes in particular. Around half of the parliamentarians participating had more than a basic knowledge of health taxes, but following the workshop, some 81% said it had helped them to understand better the importance of health taxes. 63% said they now felt “extremely” confident in advocating for health taxes.
The event’s outcome declaration and action plan to raise tobacco taxes paved the way for meetings with Government officials, with the Minister of Finance ordering the creation of a special fund for those suffering from NCDs. The Minister also indicated he would look favourably at an increase in
tobacco taxes – another example of IPU capacity-building leading to real-time action.
“None of this can be achieved without political will,” noted IPU Secretary General Martin Chungong. “That’s why this workshop is so important. We hope it marks the beginning of broader, sustained parliamentary engagement on the issue of tobacco taxation.”
