Statement of Sylvie Bryant

November 17, 1993

Your Honor, Ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Executive Director of the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), I should like to thank you for inviting me here today to be on this panel.

The timing of the panel is particularly fortuitous for UNDCP: just three weeks ago, senior government ministers from countries around the world held a series of special meetings in the UN General Assembly in order to reaffirm their commitment to international cooperation in drug abuse control. What was most encouraging to hear during the course of these high level sessions was the growing convergence of views expressed. Policy makers at hte seniormost ranks of government made it very clear that the resposibility for drug abuse control could no longer be shifted from one country to the other, but that every country had to become involved. They emphasized that the international community had, at long last, an effective arsenal with which to confront the spreading drung phenomenon - namely a common strategy, a blueprint for action, and the necessary institutional structure - and that the time had come to match words with deeds, and act quickly in translating these words into real life action.

As most of you here know, the United Nations Drug Control Programme came into being on 1 March 1991, when the world community, after a lengthy process of analysis and examination, decided there were no national solutions to the growing problem of drug abuse, that it was a global phenomenon which could no longer be addressed piecemeal, and that it required a coordinated response at the global level. It thus created a single organization which took on the work of three predecessor bodies and gave it the mandate and the competence to play a leadership role in combatting drug abuse. It also decided that this new global approach to drug abuse control should be a balanced one, giving equal priority to demand reduction activities, to supply reduction through alternative rural development as well as institution building and training in the law enforcement area, in order to enable governments to combat more effectively illicit trafficking.

This global approach is flexible enough that it can be readily adapted to local needs. It must operate at three different levels. the national, the rgional, and the global. I should like to outline briefly for you therefore how UNDCP envisages its implementation at each of these levels.

At the national level the strategy calls for the whole of civil society in all its components to be mobilized to meet the challenge. Drug abuse is an issue which has become so complex. multifaceted and pervesive that no one should labour under the illusion that drug control policies can be simply imposed on civil society. Consensus building and community participation are indispensable. This means that local and municipal government, non-governmental organizations, professional and business groups, the academic community, the mass media, the world of entertaintment and sports must all pull together. The UN Drug Control Programme has pursued this approach since its establishment two and a half years ago, reaching out to different groups in the community. Last month for example, in Seville, UNDCP collaborated with major American and European corporations in organizing the first International Private Sector Conference on Drugs in the Workplace and the Community. On the non-governmental front preparations are w

ell underway for a World Forum which UNDCP is cosponsoring at the end of 1994 on the role of Non-Government Organizations in demand reduction. The Forum is being preceded by a series of regional preparatory meetings, and I am happy to tell you that in North America there will be a meeting of American, Canadian and English-speaking Caribbean NGOs, which will deal specifically with the impact of drugs and violence on youth. UNDCP is also a member of the Executive Commitee of the Association of Cities and is working as well with the International Meeting of Mayors against Drugs, which had its fifth international session in Macao last month. Promising initiatives have also been launched with the media, with sports organizations and with universities and think tanks.

At the same time, there are three prerequisites which governments must meet at the country level so that the basic builnding blocks can join together for a solid foundation. First, governments must fully integrate their drug control priorities and strategies into overall socio-economic development. to this end UNDCP is advocating thath each and every country formulate its own drug control plan. Such plans not only provide a comprehensive picture of the drug abuse situation, thay also avoid the danger of overlap and duplication. So far UNDCP has assisted 54 governments in preparing such plans.

The second prerequisite is adequate internal coordination. An effective multidisplinary approach in drug abuse control means working with departments of health, education, social welfare, justice, housing, corrections, and the like. It goes without saying that the third prerequisite is institution building, to ensure that the structures are in place, including the legal apparatus, to carry out the policies.

The ability of drug traffickers to redirect operations highlights the importance of the regional level in implementing the global strategy. The overriding need to exchange information and intelligence calls for a fundamental rethinking of the goals of inter-country dialogue. In addition pooling of resources is vital in the case of alternative development, for example, where the cost of the capital investments required far outstrips the means of individual countries. We are seeing in fact that regional arrangements are fast evolving into the nucleus of action for multilateral drug. control. Just two weeks ago Laos joined China, Myanmar and Thailand is signing an intercountry agreement which could become a model in the future. In Southwest Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan recently agreed to work towards the development of subregionbal cooperation programmes. In eastern Europe UNDCP is helping to coordinate both bilateral as well as multilateral drug abuse control assistance, The same pattern of subregiona

l cooperation is slowly emergint in Africa, in Latin America and in the Near and Middle East.

At the third level, namely the global level, UNDCP is working with all the agencies in the UN system and is making particular efforts to enlist the support of the international financial institutions. These alone have the quantum of resources needed to finance the massive development efforts that must be undertaken in tandem with drug control activities. To illustrate what I mean, UNDCP is supporting a prevention project in Brazil in order to break the link between intravenous drug use and the spread of HIV. The project is being financed in large part out of a three hundred million dollar programme lanched by the World Bank and the Government of Brazil.

As I noted at the outset, a primary objective of UNDCP is to achieve a balanced approach - whereby illicit production, consumption and trafficking are all addressed as parts of a single phenomenon. For now, achieving this balance will require the U.N., Drug Control Programme to place greater emphasis on demand reduction activities, and specifically on prevention and education. This will not be easy. Drug control policy is controversial, particularly at the international level where different cultures, national traditions and legislations limit the field of action. but UNDCP is hopeful that by forging links with all our potential partners in the community - which is where the problem begins, and where it ends - we will be able to address the drug problem effectively.