Article 21.1 of the Convention requires all Parties to submit to the Conference of the Parties (COP), through the Convention Secretariat, periodic reports on their implementation of the Convention. The frequency and format of such reports are determined by the Conference of the Parties.
The Convention Secretariat communicates, through notes verbales, the expected dates of submission of Parties’ periodic reports and other practical information on reporting.
At the fourth session of the COP, Parties decided that implementation reports should be submitted at regular, two-year intervals, synchronized with the cycle of the regular sessions of the COP (Decision FCTC/COP4(16)).
Parties that have not submitted their implementation reports during the reporting period identified in the notes verbales sent by the Convention Secretariat – and, if applicable, in any further official communication on the matter from the Secretariat – will not be able to do so after the deadline, only in future reporting cycles. Information from the Parties that have not submitted a report by the deadline will not be included in the analysis that the Secretariat carries out for the next session of the Conference of the Parties.
However, information related to any developments in implementing the Convention could be sent to the Secretariat at any time, outside the official reporting cycles, through the following email address: copreporting@who.int.
Irrespective of the number of other surveys in which it has participated in any tobacco-control matter, the Party is still required to submit an implementation report under the WHO FCTC. Article 21 of the Convention requires each Party to regularly submit reports on its implementation of the Convention. Furthermore, Parties are encouraged to contribute to data collection by WHO and other entities where applicable, considering that this information will also be used to assess progress in implementation of the Convention.
To access the online reporting platform and to complete the questionnaire, Parties should refer to the link sent by e-mail to the focal point(s) designated by the Party before the opening of the new reporting cycle.
A PDF version of the questionnaire is available for Parties’ information (not completion, just information) under the “Reporting” tab on the WHO FCTC website.
An MS Word version of the questionnaire is also available from the Convention Secretariat upon request. Parties are kindly invited to send their request to receive the MS Word version to copreporting@who.int.
Please note that neither the PDF nor the MS Word versions are accepted as valid submissions; only reports submitted through the online reporting platform are accepted as official reports.
Yes. Should the Parties need any of their previous reports in PDF, they could access them in the Implementation Database for the WHO FCTC on the WHO FCTC website.
In the 2025 reporting cycle, due to significant changes in the reporting instrument, Parties will need to complete their report from scratch. In later cycles, Parties will be able to retrieve previously reported information in the reporting platform.
Links to the online questionnaire are sent to the Parties using the email address of the WHO FCTC technical focal point found in the records of the Convention Secretariat. If the individual responsible for the completion of the reporting instrument has changed since the last reporting cycle, please contact the Convention Secretariat at copreporting@who.int, and provide the contact details of the new focal point.
If a Party has not received the link to the online questionnaire by the beginning of the announced reporting period, they should contact the Convention Secretariat so that we jointly identify the reason for it.
The report should be submitted in one of the six official languages of the COP: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian or Spanish.
Yes. In the reporting platform, there are brief instructions on how to respond to the respective question. In addition, in a separate file, Parties have a user manual available on how to use the reporting platform.
Yes. In such cases, please send a message containing a brief description of the required assistance to copreporting@who.int, and the Secretariat will strive to assist as quickly as possible. In the reporting periods, the Secretariat will deal with such messages on a priority basis.
The reporting platform automatically saves data that is entered. The completion of the report can be discontinued and resumed at any time.
Parties that have limited access to the Internet or if their Internet access is not stable, should notify the Convention Secretariat of the difficulty they are facing. According to our previous experience, there could be some remedies for this problem. In some cases, the WHO Country Office can help the country’s reporting officer by providing a workspace with a good Internet connection for the time necessary for the completion of the report.
Alternatively, Parties can complete their implementation reports offline in an Excel format that could be downloaded from the platform (or an MS Word version that can be requested from the Secretariat); the Excel file could easily be “imported” to the reporting platform, while the information in an MS Word version should be copied and pasted into the online reporting platform, once the Internet connection is restored.
If a Party submitted its report by mistake (e.g., it is still incomplete and wishes to work more on it), it should send a message to the Convention Secretariat to copreporting@who.int and request the reopening of the report.
The report can be downloaded or “exported” from the platform at any time. Alternatively, the Party can also request a PDF copy of the report after submission from the Convention Secretariat; please send your request to copreporting@who.int.
The designated government official responsible for submitting the implementation report can sign a cover letter, but this is not mandatory.
If a cover letter is being prepared, this could be scanned and emailed to the Convention Secretariat at copreporting@who.int.
Such letter, if it is prepared at all, could be as simple as stating that the report has been submitted through the online questionnaire.
All implementation reports and the annexes to those reports are available on the WHO FCTC website, on country pages dedicated to each Party that has submitted at least one implementation report. Please access the “Coordination platform”, and then from there the implementation database.
The global progress reports are prepared by the Convention Secretariat based on the reports submitted by the Parties and they are submitted for consideration of each regular session of the Conference of the Parties. The global progress reports are accessible through the “Reporting” tab on the WHO FCTC website.