Technical report on gender perspective and drugs policies is being carried out
Within the Component 4 of the Programme (Support to policies, dialogue and consolidation of the EU-CELAC Coordination and Cooperation Mechanism on drugs), it is established that COPOLAD will support the institutional reinforcement of national agencies in charge of drugs policies, through the elaboration of technical thematic reports relevant to the formulation of policies that may be considered of interest, within the area of drugs policies, in case those reports are previously requested by the EU-CELAC Coordination and Cooperation Mechanism on Drugs Policies.
In this framework, and as requested by the Mechanism, during its XVIII High-Level Meeting, COPOLAD is developing a technical report on gender-sensitive drugs policy to empower women. The purpose of this report is to broaden and complement the previous COPOLAD report conducted in 2014, directed and coordinated by National Commission for Development and Life Without Drugs (Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo y Vida sin Drogas, DEVIDA, Peru), as well as other sectoral reports, recently published by key institutions.
The contents of the report will respond to the needs pointed out in the final document of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on the World Drug Problem (UNGASS 2016, New York), where, in the section dedicated to Operational recommendations on cross-cutting issues: drugs and human rights, youth, children, women and communities, on section g) it states the need to: Ensure the involvement of women in all stages of the development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of drug policies and programmes, develop and disseminate gender-sensitive and age-appropriate measures that take into account the specific needs and circumstances faced by women and girls with regard to the world drug problem and, as States parties, implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.
The report will provide a basis for interested countries to be able to make operational decisions in the different areas of drugs policies, with the aim of recognising and guaranteeing the rights of women and carry out affirmative actions with the purpose of overcoming the historical imbalance affecting women, and how this is reflected in such policies.
The technical coordination of this report is being carried out by the Secretary of Gender of the National Drugs Board (Junta Nacional de Drogas, JND), Uruguay. The countries actively participating in COPOLAD II have been invited to contribute to the elaboration of the report, reporting their developments in this area, as well as inviting them to be part of the Editorial Board that will validate the final contents of the report.
Preparation of the 3rd COPOLAD II Annual Conference that will be held in Sofia (Bulgaria)
The COPOLAD Execution and Coordination Body is already working in close collaboration with the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Bulgaria, the country holding the Presidency of the EU during the first semester of 2018. This collaboration will allow an organised coordination of our Annual Conference (19 -20 June 2018), in which we expect to gather at least, the 60 countries and different institutions that met in Buenos Aires in its previous edition.
Like each year, our Annual Conference will precede the High Level Meeting of the EU-CELAC Coordination and Cooperation Mechanism on drugs, which will be celebrating its XX edition on 21- 22 June. We kindly invite National Drug Agency officials in EU and CELAC countries to save those dates in their agendas for 2018.