Prevention and control of chemical precursors' diversion
In February 2019, the Meeting of Working Group 1 on COPOLAD Precursors was held in Brussels (28 February and 1 March 2019), which currently has 10 member countries, being Guatemala and Honduras the last to join this initiative.
The Group has carried out a search for available documentation on this subject, gathering more than 100 publications that are collected in a database accessible to all countries. Of all the documents and topics addressed, the most important were identified and it has been decided to progress working on the theme of "inter-institutional coordination in the field of precursors". During the Brussels meeting, all the countries presented practical cases in which inter-agency coordination and cooperation play a fundamental role. As a result of this work, lessons learned and best practices have been identified and are currently being developed with the aim of having a document that gathers all this information and that will also be available to all CELAC and EU countries.
The document is expected to be presented at the 4th Annual COPOLAD Precursors Week, to be held in October 2019 in Argentina.
Alternative Development (AD)
COPOLAD works to facilitate the intra-regional exchange of best practices and mutual learning on the topic of Alternative Development (DA). This topic has a growing interest in the CELAC countries, so currently, 6 new countries will join the activities developed by COPOLAD in this field: Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Uruguay. Thus, 17 countries are already participating in the DA work carried out by the program (11 CELAC countries participating since 2016: Bahamas, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago - and 6 new interested countries mentioned above).
The 4th COPOLAD Forum for Intra-regional Dialogue on Alternative Development will take place on July 17 and 18, 2019 in the city of Antigua Guatemala (Guatemala). It will be organized by COPOLAD in coordination with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and the Executive Secretariat of the Guatemalan Commission Against Addictions and Illicit Drug Trafficking (SECCATID).
The objective of the Forum will be to share and exchange experiences on best practices and new developments in the field of Alternative Development, with special emphasis on the inclusion of a gender perspective in such policies, taking into account the multiple vulnerabilities existing in this area. This new edition will once again include the participation of government representatives, farmers, representatives of peasant associations, small producers, and other members of civil society as important actors in drug policy at the local level.