COPOLAD presents in Argentina a new tool for planning more effective drug demand reduction programmes

Buenos Aires, 30 July 2019. The International and Ibero-American Foundation for Public Administration and Policies (FIIAPP) organises in Buenos Aires (Argentina) the first Planning Workshop on Drug Demand Reduction focused on Training in the use of the "Step@atTime" instrument, aimed at Southern Cone and Andean countries, in collaboration with the Secretariat of Comprehensive Drug Policies of the Argentine Nation (SEDRONAR). The opening of the workshop is in charge of the Secretary of State, Dr. Roberto Moro, part of SEDRONAR, Teresa Salvador-Llivina, Director of COPOLAD, and the Technical Director of Social Promotion and Development (PDS), Jaume Larriba.

Importance of planning in the field of drug policies

When working on the design, the definition of objectives and the evaluation of interventions in the field of drugs, planning takes on special importance, ensuring that each intervention is carried out in a coherent and realistic manner. Planning also makes it possible to foresee future scenarios, maximise the benefits of the intervention and minimise any difficulties that may exist. COPOLAD proposes to work on the Logical Planning Model that allows an orderly and systematic intervention, interrelated, and that defines the key steps to be taken in this process. 

These steps give the name to the tool with which COPOLAD offers, in this workshop, training to those in charge of the National Observatories and of the demand reduction area of the Drug Agencies of each country. Thus, "Step@atTime" , presented today for the first time in Argentina, is a virtual tool that guides the process of design and evaluation of an intervention in a given territory and context, facilitates access to quality information, contains work forms, provides tools for sharing documentation with other professional teams, and facilitates tools for analyzing the quality of intervention planning.

About twenty professionals will be the first to know, through practical exercises, the tool, which aims to be applied nationally in these countries. This is the first of the three workshops that COPOLAD, with the guidance of PDS, will hold during 2019 in the Americas. Future sub-regional editions of this workshop will be held in the Bahamas in October and in Panama in November of this year.