Tag: DPNSEE

A great insight into the new EU Drugs Strategy

Posted on by Milutin

DPNSEE hosted the Webinar on EU Drugs Strategy 2021 – 2025 on Wednesday 24 March 2021. The Webinar was supported by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

The webinar was supposed to serve as a source of inspiration to support all those involved process of design, implementation and evaluation of drug strategies.

The EU Drugs Strategy 2021 – 2025 was presented by Danilo Ballotta, Coordinator – Institutional relations at the EMCDDA (link to Danilo’s presentation>>>).

Iga Jeziorska, from Youth Organisations for Drug Action, Chair of the Working Group on the EU Action Plan at the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs (link to Iga’s presentation>>>) and Adrià Cots Fernández, Research and Advocacy Officer, International Drug Policy Consortium spoke about the civil society involvement in the process of designing the Strategy.

A more critical view on the Strategy was offered by Péter Sárosi from the Rights Reporter Foundation (link to Péter’s presentation>>>).

Discussions in three separate discussion rooms followed on three main pillars of the Strategy: Reducing supply (facilitated by Željko Petković, Assistant Director, Service for Combatting Drug Abuse at the Croatian Institute of Public Health), Reducing demand (facilitated by Matej Košir, Deputy Chairperson, Vienna NGO Committee on Narcotic Drugs, UTRIP Institute, Slovenia) and Harm reduction (facilitated by Marios Atzemis, DPNSEE Board member, European AIDS Treatment Group Greece).

More than 70 representatives of governmental organisations, both on national and local level, academia, civil society organisations, international organisations and donor community participated.

The Webinar offered a comprehensive and interesting insight into the Strategy and caused an interesting discussion and exchange of views.

Webinar on EU Drugs Strategy 2021 – 2025

Posted on by Milutin

The Drug Policy Network South East Europe and the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) invite you to participate in the webinar that will provide information on the new European Union drug strategy.

The EU Council approved the EU Drugs Strategy on 18 December 2020 setting out the political framework and priorities for the EU’s drug policy in the period 2021-2025. The strategy aims to ensure a high level of health promotion, social stability and security and contribute to awareness raising. On the basis of this strategy, the Council will prepare an action plan which will set out concrete measures to achieve these priorities.

With this strategy, the EU and its member states reaffirm their commitment to an approach which is based on evidence, comprehensive and balanced between demand and supply reduction of drugs, with the preservation of human rights at its core. At the same time, this strategy uses the lessons learned from the COVID-19 crisis in the drugs area and takes a future-oriented approach, promoting research, innovation and foresight to respond more effectively to increasing challenges and to anticipate them.

The webinar may serve as a source of inspiration to support all those involved process of design, implementation and evaluation of drug strategies. It is especially suitable for regional drug strategy makers, regional civil society groups, European and other interested participants.

The EU Drugs Strategy 2021 – 2025 will be presented by Danilo Ballotta, Coordinator – Institutional relations at the EMCDDA.

We also expect inputs from the civil society activists. The full list of speakers will be published before the webinar.

The Webinar will be held via Zoom on Wednesday 24 March 2021 starting at 13:00 CET. The Webinar will last for 90 minutes.

The Webinar will be delivered in English, with translation into Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian. We are exploring opportunities for translation into other languages of South East Europe.

As the number of participants is limited, please register by Tuesday 23 March using the following link>>>.

 

735 drug induced deaths in Serbia since 2008

Posted on by Milutin

The Drug Policy Network South East Europe held the promotion of the Analysis of the data on drug-induced deaths in Serbia 2008 – 2019 on 10 March 2021 with the support of the Office for Combating Drugs of the Government of the Republic of Serbia.

The presentation with bilingual data (Serbian and English) is available following this link>>>.

More than 30 representatives of governmental organisations, civil society organisations, media and international organisation from Serbia and other countries participated.

The discussion emphasized the need to better report deaths and analyse the data so that we may better protect people who use drugs from overdose and loosing life.

The Analysis is available following this link>>>.

 

Drug-induced deaths in Serbia

Posted on by Milutin

The Office for Combating Drugs of the Government of Republic of Serbia and the Drug Policy Network South East Europe (DPNSEE) invite you to the promotion of the analysis of the data on drug-induced deaths in Serbia 2008 – 2019.

DPNSEE has prepared the analysis using statistic about the drug-induced deaths managed by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. The data used are segmented using codes of the causes of death, agreed with the Ministry of Health and the Institute for Public Health “Dr Milan Jovanović Batut”, in accordance with the standard protocol of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA).

The statistics include annual tables presenting number of those passed away by different indicators: gender, age, location, substance that caused death, consequence of long term use or accidentally, etc.

The presentation will be held in Serbian with translation into English via Zoom at the following link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86941798054 on Wednesday 10 March 2021 starting at 11:00 CET. The presentation would last for approximately 60 minutes.

For all additional information, please contact us using followong email addresses kabinet@kzbpd.gov.rs or office@dpnsee.org.

 

No risk, no borders for young people

Posted on by Milutin

Photos: Project EUINFONET

DPNSEE was one of 4 organisations from Serbia which signed the contract with the (RYCO) for implementation of projects in scope of the 4th Open Call “A Better Region Starts with Youth”. The Call is financially supported by the European Union. The Contracting Meeting was held on 23 February 2021 in the Human Rights House (Kuća ljudskih prava), in Belgrade.

During the signing ceremony, the welcoming remarks were delivered by the Head of Information, Communication and Press at the Delegation of the European Union to Serbia Mr Paul-Henri Presset, the Head of the RYCO Local Branch Office in Serbia Ms Marija Bulat, Youth Representative in the RYCO Governing Board Mr Marko Kostić and the Assistant Minister for International Cooperation in the Ministry of Youth and Sports of Serbia Mr Uroš Pribićević.

Other three projects supported will be implemented by Independent Journalists’ Association of Vojvodina, Red Cross of Vojvodina and Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia.

The selected projects will enable development of youth-led processes of intercultural dialogue and reconciliation in the Western Balkans, and the development of social capital among young people by strengthening the competences of young people and those who work with them.

Moreover, the projects are important for furthering implementation capacities of CSOs using a learning-by-doing approach, with special focus on increasing capacities to adapt and remain operational during COVID-19 pandemic situations and imposed safety measures. The supported projects standout as creative and innovative proposals, including online components or online focus.

The DPNSEE project “No Risk, no borders for young people” will strive to contribute to the efforts of the reconciliation processes in the WB countries and stronger youth participation in CSOs by developing and supporting regional youth cooperation focused on youth at risk, as its desirable overall impact/change.

It will be implemented in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Serbia in partnership with our member organisations Aksion Plus, Margina, Juventas, Prevent and Re Generation.

The video from the signing ceremony is available at the Youtube channel of the EU delegation in Serbia

 

TACSO supports DPNSEE Strategy review

Posted on by Milutin

DPNSEE is among 10 selected civil society organisations (CSOs) from the Western Balkans and Turkey Region for the Strategic Mentoring Programme. The Programme is a part of EU TACSO 3 Capacity Development and People to People (P2P) Programme. It enables interested and qualified organisations to get an in-depth mentoring support to improve areas of their work according to their needs and in line with EU TACSO 3 project priorities.

In total, forty-three (43) requests were received as the response on the EU TACSO 3 open call out of which ten (10) are allocated mentoring support. During the assessment process, the quality of applications, types of organisations as well as geographical and thematical coverage were taken into consideration.

The Strategic mentoring support is composed of targeted hands-on capacity development support to selected CSOs, tailored to individual organisations and pragmatic resulting in concrete outcomes. Support includes assessments, meetings and consultations, workshops and support in development of concrete documents (i.e. plans, strategies, internal procedures and documentation etc.).

DPNSEE have applied for support to review the network’s Strategy and develop the Public Relations and Communication Strategy. The Strategic Mentoring support will be implemented until November 2021.

 

Drug policy evaluation models presented

Posted on by Milutin

DPNSEE and Trimbos Institute hosted the Webinar “Drug Policy evaluations: opportunities to support inclusive, effective and evidence-based public policy” on Wednesday 10 February 2021. The aim of the Webinar was to provide information on drug policy evaluation as an effective instrument to guide, manage and support effective policies and services.

The Webinar included an introduction on drug policy evaluations and presentations on approach and methods and experiences from the evaluations performed in Croatia and Cyprus. Discussions in three separate discussion rooms followed on different segments of a policy/strategy cycle.

More than 90 representatives of governmental organisations, both on national and local level, academia, civil society organisations, coming from 31 countries, and international organisations participated.

The presentations from the Conference are ready to download:

  • Introduction to drug policy evaluation: Liesbeth Vandam, European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction following this link>>>
  • Drug Policy evaluations: approach and methods: John-Peter Kools, Trimbos Institute following this link>>>
  • Drugs policy evaluation – experience and benefits: Sanja Mikulić, Head, Service for combating drugs abuse, Croatian Institute of Public Health, Croatia following this link>>>
  • Online opportunities: Daan van der Gouwe, Trimbos Institute following this link>>>
  • Experiences from online/hybrid evaluation: Chrysantos Georgiou, Cyprus following this link>>>.

 

Webinar on Drug Policy Evaluations

Posted on by Milutin

The Drug Policy Network South East Europe and Trimbos Institute invite you to participate in the webinar that will provide information on drug policy evaluation as an effective instrument to guide, manage and support effective policies and services. The Webinar is supported by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and the European Civil Society Forum on Drugs.

The Webinar will present an insight on how various actors can contribute to a process of monitoring and evaluation of drug policies and can benefit from. It will:

  • showcase the benefits of drug policy evaluations
  • provide examples of recent regional drug policy (e.g. Croatia, Cyprus)
  • provide opportunities of online evaluations

The webinar may serve as a source of inspiration to support all those involved process of building better drug policies. It is especially suitable for regional drug policy makers, regional civil society groups, European and other interested participants.

The Plenary introductions will include:

  • Introduction on drug policy evaluations
  • Drug Policy evaluations: approach and methods
  • Benefits from independent evaluation
  • Online opportunities
  • Experiences from online/hybrid evaluation.

Three parallel breakout sessions will follow on What is needed to prepare a national drug policy?, How to monitor progress? and How to learn from and improve policies?

The Webinar will be held via Zoom at the following link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86598224178 on Wednesday 10 February 2021 starting at 14:00 CET. The Webinar will last for 120 minutes.

As the number of participants is limited, please register by Monday 8 February using the form attached here>>>.

 

Our project proposal shortlisted!

Posted on by Milutin

Good news for the start of the New Year!

The Regional Youth Cooperation Office (RYCO) received 129 project proposals for their fourth RYCO Open Call for Project Proposals which networked 392 partners from the Western Balkans.

The Selection Committee for the Call has determined that our application meets our guidelines, that it has been highly ranked among other applications, and is in line with the priorities set out by RYCO. Therefore, it is qualified for the next phase of the selection process. We are among 12 projects on the open call Preliminary list.

DPNSEE will do our best to provide all the necessary additional documents to have the application finally accepted by RYCO.

 

Use of new psychoactive substances in WB/SEE – challenges, needs and opportunities

Posted on by Milutin

Our member organisation NGO Re Generation, with support of Eurasian Harm Reduction Association, ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for Western Balkans and Turkey and DPNSEE, invite you to participate in an online meeting “Use of new psychoactive substances in WB/SEE – challenges, needs and opportunities”.

This year, EHRA and the School of Law, Swansea University undertook the project “New Psychoactive Substance Use in Moldova, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Serbia” aiming to generate a more accurate picture of the use of new psychoactive substances (NPS) and to assess harm reduction and law enforcement responses to the emerging issues related to use of NPS. In addition, EHRA funded project #DAZNAMŠTARADIM implemented by NGO Re Generation. Both of the actions generated a more detailed picture on what are the specific issues related to NPS in Serbia. We believe that these issues should be communicated and discussed among CSOs in the Western Balkan/SEE region that work with and represent affected communities.

The meeting will be held via Zoom on Friday 06 November 2020 starting at 11:00 CET. The meeting will last approximately two hours. You can access it by following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86130730814.

The invitation for the meeting with more details is available following this link>>>.