UN labour body cuts ties with tobacco industry

GENEVA: Bowing to public pressure, the UN's labour body agreed Thursday to stop accepting funding from tobacco companies, a decision that cut the last remaining ties between the world body and the industry.

The International Labour Organization (ILO) said it would adhere to a June resolution passed by United Nations Economic and Social Council "preventing tobacco industry interference".

The ILO's governing body "agreed that no new funding shall be accepted by the ILO from the tobacco industry and that existing Public Private Partnerships with the tobacco industry will not be prolonged beyond their expiry dates."

Last month, nearly 200 organisations and individuals from around the world warned the ILO that its reputation was being tarnished by its continuing partnership with tobacco. 

The ILO had justified its ties to the tobacco companies as a way of helping improve the working conditions of the some 60 million people involved in tobacco leaf growing and production worldwide.

The agency has received more than $15 million from Japan Tobacco International and groups linked to some of the world's biggest tobacco companies for "charitable partnerships" aimed at reducing child labour in tobacco fields.

But activists and civil society groups insisted that tobacco-funded programmes had limited impact in improving workers conditions.

They argued that a partnership with a major UN agency was allowing tobacco companies to portray themselves as a responsible corporate actor even as their products were killing millions of people each year. 

ILO members instructed director general Guy Ryder to find new funding for programmes to help those working in the tobacco industry.