On March 1st 2018, the Greek Parliament adopted the bill “Provisions for the Production of end products of medicinal cannabis”. The Standing Committee on Social Affairs discussed the draft law at two meetings of the committee and organized a hearing in the Greek Parliament with participation of patient organizations, drug service providers, representatives of the scientific community, agricultural trade unions and civil society organizations. An extensive debate took place in Parliament’s plenary, which ended with the adoption of the bill. The majority of the Parliament voted in favour of the bill.
Thanasis Apostolou, General Director of Diogenis – Drug Policy Dialogue, writes about this important development in a document you can find here.
France is the first European donor to the Global Fund Against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria with annual contribution of 360 million Euro. The 7% Initiative AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria is the second means whereby France contributes to the Global Fund. The purpose of the 7% Initiative is to respond to requests for high-level technical expertise from GF grant recipient countries, including French-speaking countries, in order to support and build their capacity for design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation and impact measurement relating to GF grants. Eligible SEE countries for this support include Albania, Bulgaria, Kosovo*, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia.
More about the Initiative is available from the web page following this link.
The French Embassy in Belgrade organised a presentation of the Initiative to the representatives on civil society organisations from Serbia working on the issue of AIDS. The presentation was held on 5 March 2018 in the French Cultural Centre.
Christelle Boulanger, Director of the Department for Pandemics at the Initiative and Bertrand Millet, Attaché de cooperation at the Institut français de Serbie presented the Initiative, answered various questions and gave good advice on preparing a project proposal.
As the deadline is 23 March 2018, interested organisations have to be quick in designing the Concept note of the project!
The Drug Policy Network South East Europe Board held a regular meeting in Skopje from 28 February to 2 March 2018. 5 of 7 Board members and Staff participated.
Significant part of the meeting was dedicated to reviewing the results of the work in the previous year and evaluating the growth of the Networks activities and actions on national, regional and the global scene. The Board sees 2017 as a year full of activities with DPNSEE international recognition and improved profile.
At the General Assembly in 2016, DPNSEE made first step in developing DPNSEE strategic plan. Following the discussion at the 2017 General Assembly, Board took steps to continue strategic discussion to identify priorities for the work in 2018 and beyond. Analysis of the DPNSEE Code of Conduct concentrated on the Board dynamics and improving relations with member organisations.
The Operational plan for 2018 includes more actions and activities for the upcoming year: capacity building, resource centre, additional translations of the Glossary of term used in drug policy, documenting cases of discrimination of vulnerable populations and international developments.
The Board accepted the information about the move of the Office and potential restructuring of the Staff.
The South East Europe Regional Coordinating Mechanism (RCM) held the third meeting on 27 February 2018 in Skopje, Macedonia. The aim of the meeting was to agree on elements of the project for the Global Fund’s Multi-country Grant Request for Proposals – HIV: Sustainability of Services for Key Populations in Eastern Europe and Central Asia Region.
The eight countries of South East Europe that are transitioning from Global Fund support to national sources of financing services (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia) welcome Moldova to the RCM.
Participants of the meeting were welcomed by Dr Venko Filipče, Macedonian Minister of Health and Aida Kurtović, Chairperson of the Global Fund Board.
To ensure meaningful consultations within key population, community organizations representatives coming from the key population which RCM would like to cover in the application were invited to a consultative meeting a day before the RCM meeting. Asocijacija Duga from Serbia (working with MSM and Roma community), LGBT Youth Organization DEYSTVIE from Bulgaria (MSM community organization, STAR-STAR from Macedonia (sex workers community) and Asocijacija Doverba from Macedonia (community based organizations of people using drugs) joined the meeting. Two regional networks DPNSEE and ERA participated to. Representatives of our member organisations Margina, Cazas, Juventas and HOPS were among participants.
Specific Objectives of this meeting included:
1. Identify key regional advocacy priorities for 2018 for increasing domestic funds towards sustainability of HIV and tuberculosis programs.
2. Review resource availability and needs, including possibilities for donor-funded initiatives.
3. Map out a regional advocacy plan, for further finalization and adoption by the RCM.
RCM opened discussion if community organisations and networks would take over some of the activities of the project proposed to the Global Fund.
On 5 February 2018, DPNSEE welcomed in our office Amarildo Fecanji, the Executive co-director of the LGBTI Equal Rights Association ERA for an introductory meeting of the two civil society organisations networks of in South East Europe. Vice-President Nebojša Đurasović, Executive Director Milutin Milošević and Communication officer and office manager Irena Molnar represented DPNSEE.
The first contact of two networks happened during the Dialogue between civil society and donors „Averting a health and rights crisis in South Eastern Europe, Building partnership to sustain HIV prevention Services for Key populations“, organised by OSF, where both directors of the networks were presenting their views on possibilities for cooperation at the panel „Bridging the HIV and human rights; how LGBT, sex worker, drug user and PLHIV communities work together to strengthen national and regional advocacy?“. Recognition of the potential for cooperation between the two networks initiated second meeting where we used opportunity to inform each other about activities of both networks and identify areas of common action.
During a pleasant and informative meeting, several areas of join interest were identified as potential for collaboration, including but not limited:
Respecting the human rights of the key populations and services offered to vulnerable and discriminated groups
Advocating for improving state of access to health of key populations
Approaching, together with other SEE COS networks, the DG Near to convince them to extend support to cooperation building in SEE
Research and mapping the state of drug use related issues within the LGBTQI communities
Advocating for specific programmes related to LGBTQI and drugs such as harm reduction, including chemsex and other.
Drug Policy Network South East Europe created a Glossary of terms used in drug policy, hoping to contribute to better understanding the drug problem in more emphatic manner. Glossary is an alphabetical list of terms with definitions.
Andrés Palencia, political scientist from the organisation Simplemente Opinión from Columbia translated the Glossary into Spanish. This is a great voluntary contribution and DPNSEE warmly thanks Andrés for the effort.
On the margins of the dialogue between civil society and donors, representatives of the Open Society Foundations visited DPNSEE office on 18 January 2018: Daniel Wolfe, director of International Harm Reduction Development, Julia Greenberg, director of Governance and Financing, and Ekaterina Lukicheva, program officer for the International Harm Reduction Development Program (all three from the OSF Public Health Programme) along with Raminta Štuikyte, consultant. Vice-President Nebojša Đurasović, Secretary of the Board Denis Dedajić and Executive Director Milutin Milošević welcomed the distinguished guests.
DPNSEE hosts presented work and potentials of the Network and answered many questions. Guests were especially interested by the fact that DPNSEE gathers member organisations from all SEE countries and that it has a wide approach to the issue, including various elements of drug policy. They underlined that their full withdrawal from the region of Eastern Europe and Central Asia is not good so they decided to assign funds to it. In 2017, they already supported two CSO projects in Montenegro with and they still have funds for support to Bosnia Herzegovina, Romania and Serbia which were not distributed, while for 2018 they have planned additional support to the region. Agreement was reached, in principle, that DPNSEE will implement a project on budget advocacy and implementation in Serbia, on local and national level. DPNSEE also proposed such an initiative on the regional level. Discussions about potential cooperation extended throughout the next two days of meetings.
Before the meetings in Belgrade, OSF and GF representatives visited Montenegro to discuss implementation of the two project they finance since 2017 and preparations for the national project application to the Global Fund. Our member organisations Cazas and Juventas were involved in the meetings.
Representatives of Margina and Viktorija had working meetings with both OSF and GF representatives. Result of the meetings is that the same support as the one for Montenegro is proposed for Bosnia Herzegovina, for a similar project adjusted to the structure of the country. Two projects are foreseen: one on accreditation of the harm reduction services in the Republic of Srpska and other on social contracting in the Federation of BH. The trigger for this decision was presentation which Denis had as panellist.
The OSF visit ended with visit to the Drop-in for drug users and Shelter for sex workers in Novi Sad managed by Prevent. The visit was very effective, with excellent presentation of Prevent’s work and very emotional discussion with three sex workers in the Shelter. At the end the guests (including representatives of SWAN and Mama Cash foundation) haven’t made any concrete promise for support but they expressed their willingness to help finding donors. The visit should be used as a model for welcoming donors and convincing them to finance services.
The Open Society Foundations convened civil society activists from HIV, harm reduction, sex worker and LGBT communities from South Eastern Europe and health and human rights donors to discuss opportunities for strategic collaboration to sustain HIV prevention services for key populations and facilitate transition to domestic financing of these programs. The half-day meeting was held on 18 January 2018 in Belgrade, Serbia.
The aims of the meeting were:
Share examples of civil society advocacy towards domestic financing of HIV services, including efforts to push national governments to commit to provision and financing of services for key populations;
Discuss current challenges sustaining programming for key populations in the region with a specific focus on the threats to the human rights movements, programs, and advocates that were directly and indirectly supported by the Global Fund when it was still active in the region;
Present examples of how targeted donor support for civil society engagement in transition and sustainability process can bolster government ownership of the HIV response;
Discuss strategies and opportunities to address the service gap and enable civil society to navigate the transition process, as well as roles that donors, regional networks and technical agencies can play.
DPNSEE member organisations representatives were panellists: Denis from Margina and Dragos from RHRN presenting situation in Bosnia Herzegovina and Romania, Ivana from Juventas presenting the promising case study of Montenegro and Milutin, together with two other networks (ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for Western Balkans and Turkey and SWAN – Sex Workers’ Rights Advocacy Network) on possibilities for work together to strengthen national and regional advocacy.
Many organisations were at the list of potential invitees. Finally, around 35 CSO participated. Besides DPNSEE, 9 member organisations were present: Aksion Plus, Margina, Viktorija, Labyrinth, Cazas, Juventas, ARAS, RHRN and Prevent.
The meeting was mainly about presenting situation and needs, with not many questions and comments from the floor. Most of the results were achieved in informal exchanges with other participants. Besides OSF and Global Fund representatives, donors included Embassy of France in Serbia, Mama Cash and Reconstruction Women’s Fund (Serbia). Representatives of other Networks included Eurasian Harm Reduction Network and Eurasian coalition on male Health.
Just after the main meeting of the dialogue, an Informal dialogue on LGBTI and HIV in South-Eastern Europe was organised by the ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for Western Balkans and Turkey. Most of the DPNSEE member organisations participated in the meeting that addressed the current work done, gaps and challenges in collaborating towards protecting LGBTI rights and addressing HIV and needs and opportunities for a regional approach and support of this work.
Representatives of the DPNSEE member organisations at the Dialogue
Preparing for the regional dialogue with donors, civil society organisations from South East Europe met in Belgrade, Serbia on 17 January 2018. The aim of the meeting is to discuss current developments regarding the work of the South East Europe Regional Coordinating Mechanism (RCM) and preparation process of the multi-country application, possible cooperation with EECA regional networks as well as opportunities for advocacy funding initiatives sustaining HIV prevention services in South East Europe. Around 30 representatives of the civil society organisations (CSOs) from all SEE countries participated.
Ana Filipovska, the RCM Coordinator and Milutin Milošević, DPNSEE Executive Director, presented recent work of the RCM and the call for multi-country application to the Global Fund to fight HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. The presentations and discussions following then helped to clarify some misunderstandings. Two regional initiatives for the project to the Global Fund were presented – Alliance and EHRA, ECOM, SWAN.
CSOs were invited to actively contribute to the work of Country Coordinating Mechanisms in expressing the country needs and designing a regional project.
The meeting was organised by HERA and Zaedno Posilni, supported by the Open Society Foundations.
The Office for combating drugs of the Government of Serbia signed on 10 January 2018 Memorandum of Understanding with 11 civil society organisations from Serbia, confirming the importance of civil society organizations and the need for their active involvement in the implementation of drug policy and promoting a new concept of cooperation between state bodies and civil society organizations. Civil society organizations now have the opportunity to join together with state authorities in establishing a broad social platform needed for creating an effective, global standards based and comprehensive drug policy.
The Memorandum was designed in partnership with the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society of Government of Serbia and civil society organisations. Organisations were invited to apply through a public call.
Drug Policy Network South East Europe was one of 11 organisations with whom the Memorandum of Understanding was signed: Nova Plus, Izlazak, Re Generation, Prevent, Duga, Timočki omladinski centar, Jazas Pozarevac, as well as from Novi Sad, Kokoro and Zemlja živih.
The Acting director of the Office for combating drugs of the Government of Serbia Milan Pekić underlined that civil society organisations are significantly contributing to implementation of the Strategy for combating drugs. He also stressed that CSOs have direct access to people using drugs. They have an important role in implementing plans and organising activities, from prevention to treatment and harm reduction.
Civil society representatives emphasized that cooperation with the Office for combating drugs is a huge step forward, significant recognition of their work and an opportunity for working together.
Thanasis Apostolou, General Director of Diogenis – Drug Policy Dialogue, writes about this important development in a document you can find here.
