Author: Milutin

Executive Director, Drug Policy Network Youth East Europe

Cooperation with Portugal – the leading country in drug policy

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During several events which happened in October, DPNSEE have deepened existing and established new relations with Portugal.

APDES outreach team in action

Our staff member Irena Molnar had an unofficial visit to APDES (Agência Piaget para o Desenvolvimento), a non-governmental which promotes integrated development in their headquarters in Vila de nova Gaia, near Porto. APDES main goal is to intervene with vulnerable communities and people, in order to improve their access to healthcare services, employment and education, working for the empowerment of institutions and individuals, as well as for the reinforcement of social cohesion. They developed several activities in this municipality and cities like Porto, Barcelos, Guarda, Viseu, Setúbal and Lisbon. The services they deliver are related to health, harm reduction and human rights, among others. Irena had a special opportunity to spend a day with the outreach team of GIRUGaia project, inter-disciplinary outreach team that works with drug users. Guided by principles related to harm reduction, it promotes the use of aseptic material and the adoption of lower risk use practices. It also provides services that promote citizenship, health and social inclusion. During several days, with good help of Joana Francisca Canedo, Advocacy and Policy officer in APDES, Irena got introduced to the Portuguese policies and functioning of the system itself, but most important also situation on the ground.

As a part of the TWIST project at Lisbon Addiction 2017 conference, several days later, member organisations representatives and Staff members had an opportunity to meet with various officials and activists from Portugal and learn about their policy and activities. We got an opportunity to informally meet with executive director of APDES, Jose Queiros, with whom we discussed future cooperation of APDES and DPNSEE. We presenting the DPNSEE work and discussed various issues and potential future cooperation. That included support which APDES could offer to DPNSEE member organisations through study visits, know-how exchange and other activities. Lisbon Addictions 2017 and the TWIST project haven’t served only as a great opportunity for learning from academia, but also to reconnect with old and make new connections with wider European specialist in areas related to substance use.

Irena and Milutin with Jose Queiros, executive director of APDES

Just after returning to Serbia, DPNSEE staff members had a meeting with the Ambassador of Portugal His Excellency Augusto Saravia Peixoto and the Deputy Head of Mission Ms Graça Costa Macedo. The meeting was scheduled on the DPNSEE initiative for cooperation.

We had an interesting exchange about the Portuguese drug policy, which is usually seen as one of the most effective in the European Union, agreeing easily that a comprehensive approach involving all stakeholders is necessary for obtaining good results. DPNSEE representatives presented their recent cooperation with their peers in Portugal, especially APDES. The Ambassador and his colleagues offered support in ensuring a wide array of contacts for the visit to Portugal, where a delegation consisting of governmental and NGO representatives from Serbia would have the opportunity to get a full insight into the policy and field activities. Following that visit and on the basis of the priorities established by the new Action Plan Against drugs in Serbia 2018 – 2020, the Embassy will assist with finding most suitable experts that would come to Serbia and bring their experiences to local stakeholders.

His Excellency is also interested to extend cooperation to other countries of the region where he represents Portugal: Bosnia Herzegovina, FYRO Macedonia and Montenegro.

The fifth days of public policies

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Policy Analysis and Policy Creation Group (GAJP), Center for Public Administration, Local Self-Government and Public Policy of Faculty of Political Sciences with the support of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation and PERFORM, organised The Fifth Days of Public Policy at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Political Sciences.

The topics of the event were: construction policy, public advocacy as a science and art, the role of citizens in changing public policies, privacy on the Internet, circular economy, public administration reform and drug policy of Republic of Serbia. Creators, decision-makers and politicians, academics, private sector, state institutions and civil society organizations spoke about these topics. During Friday and Saturday, workshops were organized to bring participants closer to the process of creating public policies.

Drug Policy Network South East Europe participated in the panel devoted to drug policies, alongside with Director of The Office for combating drugs, Milan Pekić and Miroslav Savković farmacologist, Professor at the University of Belgrade, Faculty of Pharmacy.

Panel discussion included topics like: The current state of affairs when a drug policy is in question and how is the system of drug control in Serbia regulated? What are the possible alternatives when policies in this field are concerned? While Irena Molnar, Communication officer of the Network drove attention to harm reduction programs and culture change of substance use in Serbia, Milutin Milošević, Executive director spoke about process of defining amendments to Laws and work on it at institutional Level included but not limited to process, public debates, working groups, engagement of NGOs. He was also briefly explaining processes of evaluation of Strategy and Action plan and what has been done so far.

Around 100 participants voted the panel on drug policies as the most interesting at the event.

Lisbon Addictions 2017

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The second European Conference on Addictive Behaviours and Dependencies – Lisbon Addictions 2017 – was held from 24 to 26 October 2017 building on the success of the first Lisbon Addictions, which took place in September 2015. That conference was originally planned as a small, one-off event to support networking across European addiction professionals. But, organisers were taken by surprise by the enthusiasm that the Conference generated. Participants’ evaluation showed that it provided a unique and valuable opportunity for discourse and networking across the different disciplines involved in this challenging and dynamic area. Lisbon Addictions was therefore made a biennial event.

Vision for Lisbon Addictions 2017 was to provide a European focused Conference but with an international perspective. Therefore, more than 1 200 participants from over 71 countries came to Lisbon, including policy actors, researchers, academia, practitioners, health professionals, governmental and non-governmental representatives, patient organisations, health economists and others. The conference spanned all aspects of the addictions field with wide diversity of the submissions made. Participants had the opportunity to select from over 500 oral presentations, view over 200 posters and hear from over 20 keynote speakers representing some of the most eminent scientists and practitioners working in the addiction field today.

The evaluation of the first conference also indicated a demand to go beyond the usual conference communication formats and complement the programme with an integrated training event to explore a selection of “hot” drug and addiction topics in-depth and build capacity among different stakeholders, using novel interactive dynamic learning formats, knowledge and experience exchange, and multi-sector networking environments. The TWIST project (Training WIth STakeholders – Applying EU drug and addiction research) was prepared as a training strand, with the participation of the target audience (early stage professionals) and other stakeholders. Aim was to meet this need through a two-day training programme embedded within the scope and programme of LxAddictions17. Most of the participants from South East Europe, especially from the civil society sector, were supported by TWIST. The topics, contents and delivery formats of the TWIST training programme were conceptualised and designed through a participatory process with selected EU representatives of the stakeholder groups.

The conference was held in the excellent facilities of Lisbon’s Congress Centre which provides the opportunity to hold large major sessions as well as smaller venues for more intensive and participatory discussions.

Sharing at the conference, either at scheduled sessions or in informal setting, helped build future collaborations between professionals both within Europe and beyond.

The next conference is already scheduled for 23 – 25 October 2019, again in Lisbon.

RYCO Open Call for projects

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Six countries of Western Balkans: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo*, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia founded the Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO) in July 2016 aiming to promote the spirit of reconciliation and cooperation between the youth in the region through youth exchange programs.

RYCO’s main objectives are:

  • Exchange and mobility: Increased mobility and exchange of young people and their key workers in the Western Balkans, which is fully representative of the diversity of the Western Balkan region.
  • Sectorial development: Greater competence among voluntary and/or professionals/youth workers accompanying young people in youth, education, sport, culture activities, dealing with reconciliation, intercultural learning and other regional topics through exchange and mobility.

RYCO launched its first Open Call for project proposals of civil society organizations and high schools in the field of promoting reconciliation in the region through increasing youth mobility, cooperation and activism. RYCO wants to empower youth for setting the road to better cooperation in the Western Balkans and ensure further progress towards European integration of the region.

The overall financial envelope for this call is EUR 900, 000. Requested budget should be between 10.000 and 35.000 Euros. Deadline for applications is 15 November 2017.

Full information about the Call is available from the RYCO webpage following this LINK>>>

Info sessions are organised in each of the Western Balkans countries. You can find the schedule of the sessions following this LINK>>>

Treatment and Harm reduction services in the context of the economic crisis

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DPNSEE member organisations Diogenis organised conference “Treatment and Harm reduction services in the context of the economic crisis, developments and challenges” from 19 to 21 October 2017 in Nicosia, Cyprus. The conference aimed to provide knowledge about the developments and challenges concerning
treatment and harm reduction services in the context of the economic crisis in countries of South
and South East Europe and to discuss possibilities which can guarantee the continuity, quality and
further development of services.

This conference is part of the project “New Approaches in harm reduction policies and practices”, financially supported by the European Commission. Transnational Institute from The Netherlands is the lead organisation of the project and partners are Diogenis, Drug Policy Dialogue from Greece, Forum Droghe from Italy and the International Centre for Ethnobotanical Education from Belgium.

Issues discussed at the conference included:

  • The way in which the competent authorities and the responsible service providers reacted to the economic crisis; the role of Civil Society Organisations in this respect and the lessons learned for securing the continuation of harm reduction and treatment services to drug users.
  • Strategies and action plans for effective harm reduction advocacy at the national level.
  • Developments on cannabis policy in South and South East Europe countries. Regulation of cannabis for medical purposes.
  • Decriminalisation of drug possession for personal use.
  • Supervised consumption sites.
  • Recent developments in countries of South and South East Europe.

The conference also paid attention to the new EU Action plan on drugs 2017-2020 and the developments in drug policy on the international level.

Diogenis cooperated with researchers from different countries, who were responsible to conduct interviews based on a research questionnaire and summarize the outcomes of these interviews in a related short report. All reports were collected and presented in a paper which was the background of the discussion at the conference.

Participants were representatives of civil society, national agencies and experts from 12 European countries. They had the opportunity to exchange information, good practices and policies on drugs in their countries as well as Europe-wide, amid economic difficulties and social challenges in Europe.

Social inclusion of most at-risk youth in the Western Balkans Region

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The EU funded project ARYSE (At-Risk Youth Social Empowerment), implemented in 6 Western Balkans countries aims to contribute to achievement of social inclusion of most At-Risk Youth at the regional level, by strengthening CSOs capacities, regional/national cooperation and advocacy actions. The specific objective of the action is to support equal access to education, employment, justice and other related fields to most At-Risk Youth in the Balkan countries, by fostering the level of active participation and inclusion of CSOs representing young people in decision making and reform processes.

The project partners are ARSIS (Albania), Association Margina (Bosnia and Herzegovina), HOPS (Macedonia), Juventas (Montenegro), NGO Labyrinth (Kosovo), Prevent (Serbia) and SHL Foundation from Germany that has a role of consultant.

Topics that the project addresses include

    • Youth from families with history of drug use and/or conflict with law
    • Street youth
    • Youth who use drugs
    • Youth in conflict with law
    • Youth without parental care
    • Young Roma

    The training mainly organised to provide material for future procedures and guidelines is being held in Skopje, Macedonia, from 15 to 18 October 2017. Experts – Nevena Nikolić, Vlatko Dekov, Dardan Berisha, Jarmila Bujak Stanko, Violeta Kola, dr Meliha Bijedić, dr Anita Burgund and Katarina Mitić – prepared draft standards for specific topics of the project.

     

    More about the project is available at the website HERE>>>

Peti dani javnih politika

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Grupa za analizu i kreiranje javnih politika, Centar za javnu upravu, lokalnu samoupravu i javne politike Fakulteta političkih nauka uz podršku Konrad Adenauer fondacije i PERFORM-a objavljuju konkurs za učesnike/ce petih Dana javnih politika koji će biti održani na Fakultetu političkih nauka Univerziteta u Beogradu, od 27. do 29. oktobra 2017. godine.

Teme petih Dana javnih politika biće: građevinska politika, javno zagovaranje kao nauka i umetnost, uloga građana u promeni javnih politika, privatnost na internetu, cirkularna ekonomija, reforma javne uprave, politika RS prema psihoaktivnim supstancama na kome između ostalih učestvuje i Mreža za politike prema drogama u jugoistočnoj Evropi. O temama će govoriti kreatori i donosioci odluka i politika, predstavnici akademske javnosti, privatnog sektora, državnih institucija i organizacija civilnog društva. U toku petka i subote biće organizovane i radionice sa ciljem da učesnicima približi proces kreiranja javnih politika.

Pravo da se prijave na konkurs imaju diplomci i studenti/studentkinje svih akreditovanih fakulteta u Republici Srbiji, predstavnici organizacija civilnog društva, donosioci odluka i aktivisti/kinje političkih partija.

Za prijavu na konkurs potrebno je da pošaljete Vaš CV na adresu: konkurs@gajp.org

Učešće na Danima javnih politika je besplatno. Učesnici će po završetku dobiti sertifikat. Broj učesnika je ograničen.
Rok za prijave je 20. oktobar, u 23:59 časova. Naknadne i nepotpune prijave neće biti razmatrane.

Za sva dodatna pitanja u vezi sa konkursom i Danima javnih politika kontaktirajte GAJP na:

konkurs@gajp.org
www.gajp.org
www.danijavnihpolitika.rs

ili preko društvenih mreža:
Facebook/nvoGAJP
Twitter: @nvoGAJP
#DJP2017

Više o prethodnim Danima javnih politika možete pogledati na sajtu:
www.danijavnihpolitika.rs

DPNSEE participation on Rational Drug Regulations Conference

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From 4 to 6 October in Brno, Czech Republic, the Conference on Rational Drug Regulation was held, organised by A.N.O. – Asociace nestatnichne ziskovych organizaci a Spolecnost Podaneruce o.p.s

The conference had an aim to start the dialogue and question social, political and professional attitudes that are going through phase of change that we can witness. At the states level we see examples of changing policies regarding cannabis for example, but on the other hand we still see policymakers practice the so call war on drugs. Rationality of Drug Regulations Conference aimed to open space for the dialogue regarding how these trends are reflecting on the local level? How are the local governments, relevant activist groups or organisations, activist groups, police forces, schools dealing with this changing situations? The Conference aimed primarily at professionals; however, it was also open to members of public interested in the topics.

Within the panel “Harm reduction: Between professionalization and activism”, DPNSEE Staff member Irena Molnar was representing the cases of SEE, and from this point of view she was presenting case study “Serbia’s Drug Policy Crossroad – Will EU accession period bring more balanced approach to (recreational) drug use?“

The conference also discussed topics on: How are these trends reflected at the local level? How are they advocated, explained and interpreted by the general public? What direct experience do the specific villages, towns, neighbourhoods, and streets have with these? How are the local governments, relevant organizations, activist groups, police forces, schools or helping network services dealing with the changing situation of the drug regulation?

More about conference program and keynote speakers you can find on the conference website. Also, check the book of abstracts

Long way to make good changes in the Law

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Ministry of Health of Serbia proposed changes to the Law on psychoactive controlled substances at the end of 2016. Very limited proposal and the public debate which was organised during 4 weeks of festive days caused serious concern among civil society organisations in Serbia. DPNSEE with two member organisations Prevent and Re Generacija, along with three other partner organisations, made large number of comments and proposals to improve the draft.

Unfortunately, there were no reply from the Ministry for more than 9 months. Finally, with the support of the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society, a meeting was organised on 4 October to discuss our contribution. Representatives from the Ministry of Health, Office for Cooperation with Civil Society, Office for combating drug abuse and Ministry of Interior met with the aim to present civil society organisations comments and proposals and exchange about which of them should be incorporated into the next version of the draft.

Although we were prepared for qualified discussion about our proposals, it turned out that the Working group in the Ministry of Health already prepared the next draft and that some of our proposals were accepted. Despite the requests to specify which proposals were accepted and which not and why, the representatives of the Ministry remained on the position that it will be possible only when this new version will be sent for the next round of consultations.

The meeting had a limited success because we presented comprehensive and qualified approach to dealing with legislation and stayed on our positions regarding very important issues related to drugs: need to ensure involvement of civil society organisations in all issues related to drug use, wider set of services of the early warning system that is to be established (including field work and consulting), right to bring samples of substances for checking, wider distribution of naloxone around the country, use of language that will not stigmatise people who use drugs, respecting the right to information and protection of sensitive information, better coordination of all the stakeholders, especially reporting about drugs, etc. The proposed amendments to the Law still have to pass a few levels to come to the Parliament and we are ready to keep advocating for a better Law.

International Narcotics Control Strategy Report

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The Department of State’s International Narcotics Control Strategy Report (INCSR) is an annual report by the US Department of State to Congress prepared in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act. The report for 2016 was published in March this year.

The INCSR is the United States Government’s country-by-country two volume report that describes the efforts to attack all aspects of the international drug trade, chemical control, money laundering and financial crimes. It describes the efforts of key countries to attack all aspects of the international drug trade in Calendar Year 2016. Volume I covers drug and chemical control activities. Volume II covers money laundering and financial crimes.

INSCR is a valuable tool when assessing the risks relating to geography and jurisdiction. It highlights the most significant steps countries and jurisdictions categorized as “Major Money Laundering Countries”, defined by statute as one “whose financial institutions engage in currency transactions involving significant amounts of proceeds from international narcotics trafficking”. Countries of South East Europe which were categorise as such in 2016 are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey.

The report also includes country files for most of the SEE countries.

The report may be downloaded from the US Department of State website following this LINK>>>