About APCAT
Our Story
Mayors, Governors and Regents play a key role in the day-to-day life of the people under their jurisdictions. (APCAT) was formed in 2016 starting with 12 cities and doubling to 21 cities in 2017. APCAT began with a focus on Tobacco Control. However, the strong link between tobacco control and NCDs as well as the COVID-19 pandemic stressed need to expand our mission to health and development.
Cities in the alliance consist of subnational leaders and national governments from Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Timor Leste and Vietnam. As of 2022, APCAT is in 80 cities and 12 countries and protects over 66 million people in the Asia Pacific Region. APCAT has also spurred the formation of national alliances in several countries.
Our Vision
APCAT aims to accelerate progress towards eventually ending tobacco use, as well as preventing the avoidable burden of NCDs, eliminating TB and viral hepatitis and improving synergy between health and development programmes and promoting integrated responses where possible, and thereby averting untimely deaths.
Our Mission
Mobilizing local government authorities, leaders and officials, as well as other stakeholders, such as, civil society, academia, media, and public health experts, among others is the key to fortify local actions for better enforcement of public health laws. One of the major ways to translate Global Goals (UN Sustainable Development Goals) and other international obligations of treaties like the global tobacco treaty (World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control or WHO FCTC) into public health impact on the ground and to end the fight against preventable epidemics is to boost local implementation.
Co-Chairs of APCAT
Mayor Francis Anthony S. Garcia
Mayor Garcia was elected as Mayor of Balanga City, Bataan, Philippines in 2016 and has since improved and continued on various advocacies including a smoke-free and Tobacco-Free Generation City, excellent educational and computer facilities in the villages and schools, and more job opportunities. Mayor Francis Anthony S. Garcia graduated from Philippine Science High School in 1992, and Cornell University in Ithaca, New York USA in 1996 with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree, majoring in Computer Science. He worked for various companies afterwards, including for Qualcomm, Incorporated in San Diego, California
Dr Bima Arya Sugiarto
Dr Bima Arya Sugiarto was elected as Mayor of Bogor City, Indonesia in late 2013. An activist and academic by background, he completed his masters at Monash University in 1998, and received his PhD in Political Science at the Australian National University in 2006. During his time as Mayor he has led Bogor City to become a leader in Tobacco control and other health policies such as becoming the first city in Indonesia to implement ban of display of tobacco products at the point-of-sale in 2017 and ban other forms of tobacco products such as e-cigarettes, chewing tobacco and shisha in 2018
12
COUNTRIES
80
CITIES
66M
PEOPLE
APCAT Secretariat
The Union Asia Pacific (UAP) is the permanent Secretariat of APCAT. The UAP supports the sharing of best practices by organising webinars, media conference and producing publications. UAP also provides technical assistance in designing and providing evidence for tobacco control, NCDs prevention, TB control and COVID-19 response programs. Furthermore, the role of the secretariat is to also measure the impact of APCAT by assessing program interventions, identifying local solutions and development of action plans with resources.