28th -29th October 2014, SEATCA organised the ‘Smoke-free Laos Workshop: Strengthening the Enforcement of the Smoke-free Law,’ together with Ministry of Health, Lao PDR.
The workshop sought to share best practices, discuss challenges, strategies and plans to strengthen the implementation of the smoke-free law among 3 cities in Lao PDR: Vientiane, Champasak and Luang Prabang.
The participants were from the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education and Sport, Ministry of Culture Information and Tourism, Ministry of Security at the provincial level, as well as representatives from World Heritage cities.
They participants had a chance to assess and evaluate the compliance of national smoke-free law,as recommendedby the WHO- FCTC Article 8 Guidelines, and to recognize their city’s strengths, and addressing its gaps and weaknesses. They also shared updates and learned from best practices of other cities and smoke-free settings, while discussing challenges and issues, and how it will be addressed. A smoke-free plan for each city, was also drafted.(Ms. S. Ratananchena, SEATCA)
