Countries participating in Copolad present achievements before the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs

Vienna, 13 March 2018. Spain convenes during the Sixty-First Session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs, the parallel event on COPOLAD: Support to South-South cooperation from the European Union. Six countries from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), present their advances within the framework of COPOLAD, programme financed by the European Commission and managed by the International and Ibero-American Foundation for Administration and Public Policies (FIIAPP).

The event is presided by the Government Delegation for the National Plan on Drugs on behalf of Spain, and the Ministry of Justice and Law of Colombia, the Ministry of National Security of Trinidad and Tobago, the National Council on Drug Abuse of Jamaica, the National Commission for Development and Life Without Drugs (DEVIDA) of Peru, the National Council of Fight Against Illegal Trafficking of Drugs (CONALTID) of Bolivia, and the Executive Secretariat of the Commission Against Addictions and Drug Traffic (SECCATID) of Guatemala, as managing and leading country of the Programme. The event also counts on the participation of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) of Germany as country member of the COPOLAD consortium, and the European Commission as financing body.

This annual event held in Vienna seeks to understand, in this edition, the extent of emerging global trends and offer responses to address remaining challenges, while closely following up on the compromises acquired during the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS) held in New York in 2016, until the celebration of the sixty-second special session, foreseen in 2019, among which is the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

In line with these objectives, COPOLAD works to facilitate evidence-based responses, including the importance that countries implement early warning systems for detecting new threats related to drug use, as well as the alternative and comprehensive development strategies that countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are fostering. For that reason, the COPOLAD Programme presents this year success stories on this matter, and how some examples of South-South cooperation are being satisfactorily developed among countries in the region.

The second phase of the Cooperation Programme between Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union on Drugs Policies (COPOLAD) is 100% financed by the European Commission, with a Budget of 10 million euro administered by Spain for the period 2016-2019.

You may follow the development of the Sixty-first Session of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs through CND’s Twitter