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Call for Nominations: WHO World No Tobacco Day Awards 2025

Deadline: 31 January 2025

The World Health Organization (WHO) is calling for nominations to the World No Tobacco Day Awards of individuals or organizations in each of the six WHO Regions for their accomplishments in the area of tobacco control.

The objective of these criteria is to facilitate nominations, bearing in mind that the final decision about whether to bestow an award rests with the WHO Regional Directors and the WHO Director-General.

Eligibility Criteria

  • The nominee can be an individual or a collective (e.g., a nongovernmental organization devoted to tobacco control) or a government department/Ministry that has made outstanding contribution to tobacco control.
  • The nominee must have made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of the policies and measures contained in the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and its guidelines, particularly in relation to the theme of World No Tobacco Day.

Ineligibility Criteria

  • WHO or other United Nations staff and their relatives.
  • People or collectives employed by or involved with the tobacco industry and their relatives.
  • People or collectives who had received a World No Tobacco Day award in the two previous years.

Selection Criteria

  • A committee formed by Director of the WHO Health Promotion Department (HPR), Programme Manager of the Tobacco Free Initiative, a representative from the Convention Secretariat of the WHO FCTC and the six Regional Advisers will examine the nominations and will select up to six candidates per region based on merit.
  • While making the shortlist the committee may agree on a set of shortlisting criteria. Any recommendation to award the WHO FCTC focal point in the government should only be made if he/ she has made outstanding contribution to advance WHO FCTC implementation and not just for routine work or participation in COP and Working group meetings.
  • Each regional list will be submitted for approval of the respective WHO Regional Director (RD). After approval from the RD, the list will be submitted to the WHO Director-General (DG) for confirmation. This committee will also recommend to the DG the two nominees for the WHO Director-General Special Recognition Award from among the list of the RDs approved lists.
  • Nepotism and favoritism are not allowed.
  • To foster a better gender-balance of award recipients, nominations of female awardees are particularly encouraged. WHO aims to achieve equal numbers of male and female awardees in 2025 and will proceed with the selection accordingly.

Application Requirements

  • On each nomination form, you will need to provide the following information:
    • Complete name of the nominee.
    • Title of the nominee, if a person.
    • Gender of the nominee, if a person.
    • Address of the nominee, including email or phone.
    • Language to be used on the correspondence with nominees and on the certificates.
    • Complete name of the nominator.
    • Title of the nominator, if a person.
    • Address of the nominator, including email or phone.
    • Detailed description of the reason for the nomination, including the dates of the actions.
    • In addition to the description of the achievement, they also strongly encourage testimonial letters from up to two individuals (other than the nominator) who support the nomination. These testimonial letters are an integral part of the nomination process, since they help to paint a complete picture of your nominee for the members of the Selection Committee.

For more information, visit PAHO.