SPARC, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, is a long-standing Pakistani civil society organization that positions tobacco control as a child-rights issue, emphasizing youth initiation, marketing near schools, and the downstream burden on families and public services. Its own materials describe a tobacco-focused program that combines policy advocacy, youth mobilization, media engagement, and research, and it explicitly notes that the organization conducts policy dialogues with government officials and other stakeholders as part of its approach.
Over the last several years, open-source reporting and SPARC-aligned communications show a consistent pattern: structured engagement with policymakers and senior officials, frequent pre-budget messaging on cigarette taxation, and repeated use of hotel venues for “dialogues,” “seminars,” and “roundtables.”
A May 2024 wire report described a SPARC policy dialogue urging an immediate increase in tobacco taxation for FY 2024–25, quoting former caretaker minister Murtaza Solangi and naming the country head of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids (CTFK) as a speaker at the same event.
Alongside these policy dialogues, SPARC has increasingly relied on packaged policy products designed for government consumption, including revenue and health simulations meant to translate advocacy into budget decisions.
In May 2025, SPARC and the Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC) launched a “Cigarette Tax Simulation Model 2025–26,” which recommended increasing the Federal Excise Duty by Rs. 39 per pack, with an estimated additional Rs. 67.4 billion in revenue.
This is the core of SPARC’s anti-tobacco activism in practice: the organization advocates for higher taxes, tighter controls on tobacco marketing and sales to minors, and stronger enforcement of smoke-free and advertising restrictions, and it frames the issue as a blend of public health, child protection, and fiscal responsibility.
SPARC-linked events have repeatedly featured public-sector voices, including officials from the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination, and its allied technical cells. A 2022 Business Recorder report on a SPARC seminar quoted Dr. Shabana Saleem, identified as Director General of Health, and described the Health Ministry’s tobacco control cell as active, while also quoting Dr. Ziauddin Islam with an unusually dense set of credentials that combine prior government functions with a Vital Strategies leadership role.
What stands out, and what deserves a clear-eyed look, is not simply the policy content, but the mechanics of influence: how access is created, where engagements happen, and how outcomes are documented.
Multiple independent media reports place SPARC tobacco events in premium hotel settings.
A March 2022 Express Tribune report explicitly stated that a SPARC dialogue took place at the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. Another Business Recorder report described a SPARC roundtable with parliamentarians on the tobacco control law, held at the Marriott Hotel Karachi. Earlier coverage of a SPARC-linked report launch referenced Serena as the venue for “Big Tobacco: Tiny Targets,” a joint production involving SPARC and other organizations, with technical input attributed to a representative of the CTFK Pakistan office.
Hotel venues are common for policy events in Islamabad and Karachi, and there can be practical reasons for their use, including security, conference facilities, and reliable logistics. Even so, the venue choice carries governance optics. A “local hotel” briefing can be a standard media and stakeholder engagement. Still, it creates a controlled environment where participation is curated, and the public has limited visibility into the format, selection criteria, and the deliverables expected of officials in attendance.
A Dawn report about a SPARC-organized media briefing makes the point indirectly, describing the briefing as held at a local hotel, identifying SPARC as organizer, and quoting both SPARC and CTFK-linked speakers on the subject of taxation and industry claims.
The officials who appear in these settings are not random. SPARC events have regularly included senior health-sector officials and individuals with prior government responsibilities in tobacco control, as reflected in the 2022 coverage, which named a sitting Director General of Health and a former technical head of the Ministry’s Tobacco Control Cell. The organization’s broader “training” footprint also indicates that SPARC views capacity building and institutional engagement as core methods. SPARC’s training page states that its training unit conducts capacity-building and workshops and that it works with a wide range of actors, including police officials, lawyers, judges, politicians, and parliamentarians.
A further window into the relationship-building strategy can be found in SPARC’s own reporting on achievements and partners. In its 2021 annual report, SPARC states that it advocated, “with the support of Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids (CTFK) in Islamabad and Karachi,” and it claims its efforts contributed to the federal government not decreasing cigarette taxes in the 2021–22 budget cycle. The same annual report describes an announcement by the Commissioner Karachi regarding plans to make Karachi smoke-free, and it attributes elements of district-level tobacco monitoring structures to SPARC and CTFK’s efforts.
It is worth noting that during 2021-22, the CTFK did not have the NOC and registration to operate in Pakistan from the Economic Affairs Division and the Ministry of Interior, Government of Pakistan.
Social media content reinforces that SPARC uses hotel-based convening as an ongoing tactic, not as an exception. Posts and promotions associated with SPARC channels have described dialogues on safeguarding youth from tobacco and nicotine products at the Marriott Hotel Karachi, bringing together experts, advocates, and youth participants. This is relevant because it demonstrates that hotel convening is not limited to the capital’s policy circles; it is also used for media-facing and stakeholder-facing activities in major provincial hubs.
An important point for any reader is that none of the above automatically implies impropriety. Civil society organizations routinely convene officials, and officials routinely attend. The accountability question is whether these “trainings” and “dialogues” produce transparent, measurable outputs, and whether the public can see what was agreed, what changed, and why. A critical commentary published on a Pakistani news site illustrates how these optics can become contested, alleging that SPARC shared photos of a policy dialogue but did not share the names and views of policymakers, while also raising questions about travel and hospitality associated with engagements outside Islamabad. Such commentary should be treated as commentary, not as proof, but it highlights why disclosure practices matter in a politically sensitive policy area like tobacco taxation.
From a governance perspective, the practical standard should be simple and consistent. Venue, attendance, and agenda transparency should be routine, especially when events involve public servants and when the advocacy goal is to shape fiscal policy. Outcomes should also be traceable. If a policy dialogue is about tobacco taxation, it should publish a short outcome note that includes which options were presented, which were rejected, and what follow-up is expected from each agency. If the activity is framed as training, it should identify learning objectives, modules, and whether any institutional changes followed.
A balanced assessment of SPARC’s public footprint, therefore, leads to two simultaneous conclusions.
The first conclusion is that SPARC is a structured and persistent anti-tobacco advocate that uses research products, media briefings, and policy dialogues to press for higher tobacco taxation and stronger tobacco control measures, often framed in terms of youth protection.
The second conclusion is that its interaction model with the state frequently occurs through curated forums hosted in high-end hotel settings, with repeated participation by senior officials or officials with tobacco-control responsibilities, which can raise legitimate public questions about transparency, costs, and influence pathways, even when the underlying engagement is lawful and standard.