Inside Africa’s Shift Toward a Smoke-Free Future: Why Local Leadership Is Redefining Global Health Innovation
“For years, Africa has been spoken about in global conversations on public health, innovation, and progress; rarely spoken with. Too often, solutions have arrived fully formed, designed elsewhere, and expected to take root without sufficient regard for local realities. But today, that narrative is shifting,” says Daniel Gyefour, Director of Smoke-Free Products for Sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting on a broader transformation taking place across the continent.
Across Africa, a new role is emerging: not as a policy follower, but as an active innovation partner in the global drive toward a smoke-free future—one grounded in local leadership, context, and lived experience. The question is no longer whether Africa will participate in this transformation, but how decisively it will help shape it.
It is against this backdrop that Philip Morris South Africa (PMSA), an affiliate of Philip Morris International (PMI), has appointed Gyefour as Director of Smoke-Free Products for Sub-Saharan Africa. The appointment signals a deliberate shift toward leadership rooted in African insight and on-the-ground experience.
With oversight across multiple markets including South Africa, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Mali, Gyefour’s mandate is focused on accelerating the transition away from combustible cigarettes for adults who smoke, toward scientifically backed smoke-free alternatives. While these products are not risk-free and contain nicotine, which is addictive, they are positioned as a better alternative for adults who would otherwise continue to smoke. Central to this strategy is a commitment to building solutions locally, rather than importing them wholesale.
“When I’m asked why the focus on Africa, the answer is simple: it’s a sense of duty,” says Gyefour. “As Africans, we have a responsibility to help build solutions that are grounded in our own realities. The most meaningful progress happens when leadership is rooted in local understanding—because that is where impact becomes sustainable and outcomes truly change.”
He adds: “We must drive the impact on our own continent. A smoke-free future will only succeed here if it is built with Africans, for Africans.”
While the World Health Organization maintains that the best option for any smoker is to quit nicotine entirely, the reality is that many adults continue to smoke. PMI’s approach reflects a broader shift in harm reduction thinking—one that argues solutions cannot be designed at a distance and expected to succeed by default.
Without local insight, advocates say, progress risks becoming well-intentioned but ineffective. PMSA’s approach places African leadership, accountability, and context at the centre of decision-making, where it is considered most critical for long-term impact.
As PMI expands its smoke-free footprint across East and West Africa—including markets such as Kenya—the company is introducing smoke-free alternatives as part of a long-term strategy to transition adult smokers away from cigarettes. The expansion reflects a belief that Africa’s fastest-growing markets should be included in the smoke-free transition early, rather than as an afterthought.
Across key African markets, PMI is advancing a multi-category portfolio of smoke-free alternatives, including oral nicotine products such as ZYN, heat-not-burn devices such as IQOS, and e-vapour products such as VEEV. Rather than offering a single solution, the strategy reflects the diversity of consumer needs, economic realities, and usage contexts across the continent.
For smoke-free progress to be meaningful, proponents argue, alternatives must be accessible, relevant, and appropriately positioned within local markets—not introduced in isolation from the realities of adult consumers.
Gyefour’s experience navigating the complexities of Sub-Saharan Africa has shaped a leadership philosophy grounded in realism. He is candid about a recurring challenge: decisions affecting African markets are often made with limited local insight.
“Too often, strategies fail because they are built without listening,” he explains. “If we are serious about moving adults away from cigarettes, we must respect the realities they live in—affordability, access, culture, and trust. Impact comes from listening before leading.”
The urgency of this approach is underscored by regional data, with adult smoking prevalence across Sub-Saharan Africa estimated between 17.2% and 19%, representing tens of millions of adult smokers across the region. In several key markets, smoking remains the dominant form of nicotine consumption among adults, reinforcing the scale of the public health challenge and the need for context-driven solutions.
