COPOLAD's new planning tool for drug demand reduction programmes is presented in the Caribbean countries

Nassau, 15 October 2019. The International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policy (FIIAPP) is organizing in Nassau (Bahamas) the second Planning Workshop on Drug Demand Reduction focused on Training in the use of the "OneStep@ATime" tool, for countries of the English-speaking Caribbean, in collaboration with the National Anti-Drug Secretariat (NADS). Opening words will be given by the Director of NADS, Dr. Terrance Fountain, together with representatives of COPOLAD and Promoció i Desenvolupament Social (PDS).

A total of 35 Caribbean professionals will be able to learn, through practical exercises, the virtual tool "OneStep@ATime" developed by COPOLAD, which aims to be applied at the national level in these countries.

Participating delegates are coming from the following countries and institutions: Antigua & Barbuda (Office of National Drug and Money Laundering Control Policy y Ministry of Social Transformation and Human Resource Development), Barbados (National Council on Substance Abuse), Belize (National Drug Abuse Control Council), Dominica (National Drug Abuse Prevention Unit), Grenada (Ministry of Education y National Council of Drug Control), Guyana (National Anti-Narcotics Agency), Haiti (Commission Nationale de Lutte contre la Drogue), Jamaica (National Council on Drug Abuse), Saint Lucia (Substance Abuse Advisory Council Secretariat y Turning Point Rehabilitation Centre), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (Ministry of Health, Wellness and Environment), St. Kitts & Nevis (National Council on Drug Abuse Prevention Secretariat), Suriname (Executive Office of the National Anti - Drug Council) and Trinidad and Tobago (Ministry of Health and Ministry of National Security).

The Bahamas participates as hosting through the most relevant institutions in this area at the national level: experts from the National Anti-Drug Secretariat, Bahamas National Drug Council, Ministry of National Security and the Ministry of Education, the National Anti-Drug Secretariat, and Rand Memorial Hospital will attend.

COPOLAD continues to work on training CELAC countries in key areas for the implementation of drug policies in accordance with available scientific evidence. Based on the application of these data, it is feasible to plan and design coherent objectives and to guarantee that the evaluation of interventions in the field of drugs not only responds to proven measurements but also to foresee future scenarios where the detected failures are corrected and the use of the most beneficial proven parts in said intervention.

The use of the Logical Planning Model facilitates the realization of an orderly and systematic intervention, and this model is used in the "OneStep@ATime" tool. Professionals from the National Observatories and Drug demand reduction areas of the National Drug Agencies of each of the previous countries are invited to learn first-hand about this virtual tool that guides the process of designing and evaluating an intervention, 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.

This is the second of the three workshops that COPOLAD, with the PDS guide, will hold during 2019 in the Americas. One has already been successfully held in Argentina for the Southern Cone and Andean countries; a third and final sub-regional meeting of this workshop will be held in Panama on 25 and 26 November this year.