The Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) Bangladesh report 2009 was released on Tuesday 22 December. Around this occasion of GATS release, PROGGA with support from Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK) organized a live TV talk show and a workshop to highlight the finding of the survey report.

A day-long workshop on Effective Utilization of GATS Data for Tobacco Control Advocacy in Bangladesh was organized on 12 January 2010 at the Top of the Park of Hotel Sheraton, Dhaka. Mr. Md. Raisul Alam Mandol, Deputy Secretary (WHO) of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Dr. Mostafa Zaman, National Professional Officer of WHO Bangladesh and Dr. Akramul Islam, Technical Consultant of The Union were in the inaugural session. Mr. Taifur Rahman, Chairman of PROGGA moderated the inaugural session. Selected tobacco control NGOs including the Bloomberg Initiative (BI) grantees in Bangladesh and a number of media persons participated at the workshop.

In the first technical session, Dr. M. Zaman made a comprehensive presentation with policy implication of GATS findings. In a short presentation of the second session, Mr. Taifur discussed about the ways of using or communicating GATS data for tobacco control advocacies in Bangladesh. After the presentation a group exercise of the participants was facilitated. The group exercise tried to work out the strategies for using GATS data in tobacco control activities. The workshop concluded by the closing remarks by Dr. Akramul Islam.