18 March 1997

Mr.Chairman, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Ten years ago, in the shadow of what was widely coming to be viewed as a looming crisis, the international community came together in solidarity at the International Conference on Drug abuse and Illicit Trafficking - the ICDAIT Conference - which was held here in Vienna. That Conference was - as you know - a landmark in the history of international drug control.

Since then much has happened. I think it is fair to say that the call of alarm raised at that time proved to be remarkably prophetic, and the drug problem has steadily become a major concern of more and more countries. At the same time, the international community continued to respond to the cahallenges facing it, first with the 1988 Convention, then the 1990 Special Session of the General Assembly which produced the Global Programme of Action and, of course, with the establishment of the Programme in 1991. These together form a solid framework for international cooperation.

In this context, this session of the Commission promises, I believe, to be one of particular significance, as next week the Commission will meet for the first time in its role as the Preparatory Body for the 1998 Special Session of the General Assembly. That Special Session has the potential to be the next major milestone in tackling the drug problem. It will, in many ways, mark the end of a phase for international drug control, and, necessarily, the beginning of a new one.

It has also been five years since I presented to you - in this very room - my strategy for the then newly-established Programme. That strategy was endorsed by this Commission, and it has since served as the main guide for our work. I would like to take a few minutes to revisit the main elements of the strategy, and give you my assessment of the extent to which we have achieved its objectives.

It was first necessary to forge one Programme from what had been three distinct -and very different - entities. The main challenge was to create a new corporate culture, identifying and building upon existing strengths while, at the same time, finding new ways to implement a broad and ambitious mandate - one which was greater than the sum of its parts.

This process of integration and renewal has been completed. A new culture has emerged - one that puts emphasis on learning, teamwork, quality and impact. Our field structure has been strenghtened, in terms of its geographic reach, its technical capacity and its ability to pursue a substantive dialogue with our parteners. The Programme has developed a more transparent and coherent apporach to planning and budgeting, together with an organizational ethic which emphasizes self-appraisal and evaluation. I am praticulary pleased that the Programme and the Board have developed a synergistic relationship, one characterized by mutual respect and exellent practical working relations. The result of all this is that the international community now has at its disposal, what I believe to be a mature institution for international drug control.

The strategy which I proposed for the Programme stressed both continuity with the activities then underway together with the launching of new intititives. It suggested that the Programme take a fresh look at the problem of dugs, and develop realistic solutions, taking into account structural, economic, social and cultural aspects. This required a shift from the "firefighter" approach - which was undeoubtedly approrpriate at the time - to a more genuinely global and long-term view.

A crucial aspect of the new approach was refoucusing on people, and not just the drugs themselves. People trapped in the nightmare of drug addiction, their families, the victims of drug-related crime, and the peasants who produce coca leaf and opium poppy to feed their children. It was also important to understand better drug traffickers, whose bread and butter is, quite simply, the misery of others. Understanding the human element - in all its dimenstions - was our starting point for developing solutions. We bagan by asking questions such as: why do people take drugs? How can we create conditions to make it less likely for people to turn to drugs? In which ways are drug traffickers most vulnerable? This process led us, among other things, to stress the need for a balanced approach, an idea which was inherent in the results of the ICDAIT Conference.

In presenting the strategy to you in 1992, I said that the Programme would work to act as the "chef d'orchestre" for international action; that it would work to help rationalize, and render more efficient government actions, in short - improve coordination. To a large degree, I believe that the Programme has been able to fulfill this role, although there are times when it does seem like the woodwinds and the strings are not always reading from the same musical score.

I also said that we would be more proactive. In addition to keeping ourselves well-informed about emerging trends, being proactive means taking risks. It is not surprising, therefore, that not all of our initiatives have been completely successful. But, many have paid a handsome return on investment. For example, the Programme provided leadership in calling attention to the emerging serious drug problems in the newly independent states of the former Soviet Union. We sensitized governments to the dangers they were facing, and acted as a bridge between countries in the region - and with potential partners in other parts of the world. Our work in the Central Asian Republics is a case in point.

A centerpiece of the strategy has been the goal of forging a new partnership with civil society: communities, the private sector, labor unions, NGOs and families. This apporach is, I believe, key to long term success. We have begun to see progress in this area. I am thinking of the major meetings which we organized to increase the involvement of NGOs and the private sector in drug concerns, mainly in the area of demand reduciton. This is also reflected by the fact that the Programme now uses NGOs - both large and small - to implement a significant number of demand reduction projects.

Demand reduction has been high on the list of priority objectives of our strategy. Preventing youth from falling victim to drugs was central to our approach, together with sharing experiences and researching new solutions on methodologies that work. Today, demand reduction is widely recognized as indispensable in solving the drug problem, and the Programme has been instrumental in propagating this concept, most notably through the Master Plan approach.

One of the long term objectives of our strategy is to achieve drug control goals through social development. This approach touches on both demand and supply reduction. The partenership with civil society is a key element of this concept. In practical terms, we have designed and set in motion a number of integrated demand reduction pilot projects, many of which have since been taken over by the local communities themselves.

In the field of alternative development, the programme has been identifying appropriate methodologies and approaches, implementing pilot projects and helping governments to strenghten national institutions for more effective planning, monitoring and evaluation. A key concern is how best to ensure that alternative development is undertaken on a scale in proportion to the problem of illicit cultivation. This requires not only stronger national institutions with enhanced fund-raising potential, but also better cooperation with International Financial Institutions and potential donors. We are just beginning to see success in drawing in the financing needed to sustain the development of areas affected by illicit cultivation. The recent agreeement between the Inter-American Development Bank nad the government of Colombia to provide some $US 90 million for alternative development - which followed a series of interventions by UNDCP - demonstrates clearly that this was a goal worth working towards. We have also recei

ved promising signs that the Asian Development Bank may be interested in supporting the ambitious programme which we have elaborated for Afganistan.

Promoting governments' adherence to, and implementation of the conventions - together with the adoption of enabling legislation - was another key objective. As I mentioned, the strategy was designed to build on the international framework, particularly the conventions - to put some flesh on the bones so-to-speak. Our work in this area has been widely appreciated by governments. At the same time, we have learned - often the hard way - about the difficulties inherent in acting as midwife in this very sensitive field which involves, in fact, an exercise in national sovereignty.

Hand-in-hand with implementation of the conventions is the objective of fighting illicit drug trafficking. Although governments themselves bear primary responsibility to tackle drug trafficking, UNDCP has had an important role to play as facilitator and co-ordinator. In this capacity, we have channeled assistance to countries with acute problems which they were not able to deal with themselves. We established mechanisms to coordinate bilateral assistance in both Eastern Europe and the Caribbean, two regions with significant drug control problems.

To tackle money laundering, I am particularly pleased with the programme which we are implementing jointly with the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Division.

The strategy included as another key objective the development of North-South and South-South cooperation, transcending unproductive finger-pointing, and emphasizing mutual responsibility. Developing mutual trust and better cooperation is, as we all know, a slow, step-by-step process. My sense is that we have progressed far from where we were 5 years ago. There is now a greater shared appreciation - at all levels - of the universal nature of the drug phenomenon and our responsibilty to face it together. It is indeed unfortunate - but probably unavoidable - that this common vision is sometimes distorted by the prism of local politics.

A number of practical initiatives have been directed at improving intergovernmental cooperation, most notably on the subregional level. Our work in promoting subregional cooperation incorporated a number of strategic concepts: The Programme was proactive in identifying latent possibilities for cooperation between countries in a subregion, and built upon the notion of shared responsibility. Cooperation arrangements used a balanced, intergrated approach, one which emphasized governments' ownership. Our initiatives in Southeast, Southwest and Central Asia, as well as in Latin America and Central Europe have yielded particularly postive results. On the other hand, the limits of such cooperation became evident in Central and West Africa, where the fragility of national institutions and the often unsettled political conditions rendered implementation for that approach more problematic.

Untapping the huge drug control potentail inherent in the UN system - including the International Financial Institutions - through better coordiantion and incorporation of drug control concerns into their day-to-day work, seemed to me not only to be an important objective, but a great challenge. I am most pleased that UNDCP now is able to sit at the table in ACC and make its concerns known to its sister agencies. We now count as operational parteners not only traditional allies like WHO, ILO and UNESCO, but new and enthusiastic partners like UNICEF, UNFPA and UNAIDS which offer much added value in the demand reduction area. The System Wide Action Plan - which had been widely viewed as a bureucratic behemoth of little of no practical benefit - has been transformed into an instrument which goes as far as is possible - given the present institutional arrangements - to coordinate drug-related work within the UN system.

I know how keen a number of Member States are to have the Programme strengthen its capability to collect and analyze information on the global drug problem, and I am pleased to report to you that we have re-enforced our links with regional and other international organizations for our mutual benefit. We have, for example, agreed with Interpol and WCO on more effective arrangements for sharing information on drug seizures. We are revising our information strategy to sharpen its focus on priorities. We are also working to simplify the procedures by which Member States report information, and to expand electronic communication and reporting facilities between ourselves and member states. INCB is already benefitting from this work.

There are areas where we need to make further progress. We have yet to get the message across about international drug control. Neither have we fully grown into the centre of knowledge and expetise which is essential to fulfilling our mandate. There are several reasons for this, some more outside of our control than within. Even so, we have come a log way. We have recently managed to increase our capacity to communicate to various audienses the successes of international drug control, including those achieved by the Programme, and I am confident that the results of this effort will soon be evident. The development of our role of centre of knowledge and expertise is exemplified by our recent work in analyzing the global amphetamine-type stimulants problem and placing that vital issue firmly on the international agenda. It should become further evident when the Programme publishes the first World Drug Report on 26 June of this year.

The ability of the Programme to fultil its mandate has been - and will continue to be - dependent upon the support it receives from governments. I was therefore pleased with the outcome of the discussions in the Commission last year on the issue of ownership of the Programme. I have also been gratified by the positive response by a number of governments in helping the Programme secure a broader base of support. As of today $US 2.1 million has been collected. And, although I am encouraged that several other countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America are considering increasing their support, we are still very far from what is needed.

My overall assessment of the last five years is that we have been not only faithful in implementing the strategy which I presented in 1992, but also largely successful, although not without disappointments. It is with pride that we in the Programme, our international partners - and you as our governing body - can view these accomplishments.

Two lessons can be drawn from our common experience. First, it is possible to have a meaningful, and lasting impact on drug abuse and trafficking through focused, cooperative work by the international community. Second, we have embarked on an undertaking of historic proportions, and, although long term commitment - coupled with the dedication of resources commensurate with the task at hand.

Where do we go from here? First, we in the Programme must continue to seek to gain new insights into the drug problem, and to use this knowledge to contribute to raising the understanding of evryone. Equally important, we must continue to emphasize the hard work of finding and applying practical solutions which help people.

The drug problem will not soon disappear, and the international community must be prepared for a long-term struggle. The basic international framework and tools are in place: the treaties, the Commission, INCB, the Programme, the global Programme of Action et cetera. They could each be refined and improved upon, I fully agree. But I believe also, that - while we should not shy from making needed improvements - it is critically important to use the framework that exists more effectively, coherently - and universally.

I said earlier that the international community today has a better and more common understanding of the drug problem than it had in 1992. This is undeniably true.

Governments have consistently - and often unanimously - referred to the drug problem as one of their priority concerns. I need only cite the Special Session of the General Assembly held in 1990, the 50th Anniversary Session of the General Assembly in 1995 and the High-level Segment of ECOSOC in June 1996. Last December, I was also heartened to hear that governments had insisted that drug control be included in the short list of priorities of the next Medium-term plan of the United Nations.

As positive - indeed essential - as these pronouncements are, they only make more evident what I see to be a growing gap between words and deeds.

One is compelled to ask: are drugs really a priority for governments? If drugs were a priority there would be less poltical rhetoric and more action. All countries would be party to the conventions, and would adopt legislation to implement them. Most countries would have in place functioning national coordinating bodies and master plans, and national budgets would provide adequately for drug control. Governments would cooperate more with each other to track down and punish drug traffickers. More funding would be available for national alternative development programmes, and the development banks would be instructed to give full consideration to drug control concerns in planning their work. Finally, the international drug control machinery would be adequate to the task, and the Programme would have sufficient support to enable it to implement fully its mandate.

The drug phenomenon is unquestionably a serious global problem, affecting almost all countries. In some areas it is nearly out of control. If the international community relaxes, if its will weakens, the consequences could be catastrophic. While the problem is enormously complex, and will undeoubtedly take generations to solve, we must maintain clarity of vision and sustained commitment.

This is the perspective from which I view the special session of the General Assembly to be of particular importance. It will be an occasion to take stock of where we have been and where we are going. To "see" the drug problem with new eyes. To evaluate how well we are equipped to meet the challenges that lie ahead.

It will be an opportunity that must not be missed to renew international partenrships; to strengthen the international drug control machinery; to refine our methods and approaches and prepare a guide to future action; but most importantly, to join in a solemn undertaking to maintain the momentum of international cooperation - and - to close the gap between our words and our deeds.

Shakespeare remainded us that we must sail with the tide to be successful. The tide is in. We cannot afford to miss it.

Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I look forward to working together with you during this Session, and during your deliberations as the Preparatory Body for the Special Session of the General Assembly, in a spirit of goodwill, knowing that we all share the same underlying conviction: that only through mutual co-operation and sustainde effort will humanity be able to save itself from the havoc wreaked by drugs.

We all must shoulder our share of this awesome responsibility. We owe it to our children and grandchildren, and to the hundreds of thousand of people who - as that extraordinary globetrotter Bruce Chatwin said - see in drugs a vehicle, because they have forgotten how to walk.

Thank you.