Course introduction for HPF Hub e-Learning

Ms Bungon Ritthiphakdee

Senior Advisor
Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA)

Bungon Ritthiphakdee (B.A., M.SW.) is the Senior Advisor of the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance or SEATCA. She is also the executive director of the Global Center for Good Governance in Tobacco Control (GGTC) which is the initiative of SEATCA to enhance the implementation of WHO FCTC Article 5.3 and to protect public policy against tobacco industry interference (www.ggtc.world). 

Bungon was the first director of the Action on Smoking and Health Foundation (ASH Thailand) from 1989 to 2000. Her hard work paid off after Thailand passed comprehensive tobacco control law and measures (1992-2006), including tobacco taxation policy (1993) and the establishment of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (funded by 2% surcharged tobacco and alcohol taxes) in 2001. Subsequently, she examined the neighboring ASEAN countries that were confronting similar problems, believing that collaboration with partners would bolster tobacco control in the region. In 2001, she founded the Southeast Asia Tobacco Control Alliance (SEATCA) and assumed its role as director from 2001 until 2018. Bungon is a Luther Terry Awardee (2006) for Outstanding Individual Leadership, received the WHO award on Tobacco Control in 2001, and was also a World Health Organization awardee (2001).