Tag: report

A tool presenting the situation in South East Europe

Posted on by Milutin

The Drug Policy Network South East Europe published the document  Addressing the acute funding crisis facing harm reduction services in South-East Europe with the aim to emphasize the acute funding crisis facing harm reduction services in Balkan states and South-East Europe, to influence the policies and actions of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria  and other donors. It is a complementary part of a larger body of work being done by a wide range of partners – including the Open Society Foundation and the International Drug Policy Consortium – to document the consequences of changes in donor eligibility policies, and to urgently try and influence donor policy away from a withdrawal from middle-income countries in South East Europe.

DPNSEE worked with their partners and members across the region to gather case studies of Opioid Substitution Therapy stock-outs or shortages, service closures or reductions in coverage, and other critical issues experienced by civil society partners in South East Europe related to transitions away from Global Fund support. Through interviews with key stakeholders and desk-based research, DPNSEE gathered information, experiences, feedback and recommendations from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo*, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia.

The material was collected in November – December 2017. Since then, it was used only internally. The document was published and shared with the participants of the South East Europe pre-Conference meeting, held in November 2018 in Bucharest, Romania.

Click here to download the document >>>

Life on the Margins

Posted on by Milutin

The biggest LGBTI survey ever conducted in the Western Balkans region is finally out and they reveal a collective experience of discrimination, harassment, exclusion and violence. The report analyses the responses of more than 2.300 LGBTI persons across seven countries in the Western Balkans region: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia and Montenegro as well as two European Union member states Croatia and Slovenia. This is the largest data set ever collected on LGBTI rights in our region.

The report “Life on the Margins: Survey Results of the Experience of LGBTI people in South Eastern Europe” was published by the World Bank in partnership with IPSOS Strategic Marketing, ERA – LGBTI Equal Rights Association for the Western Balkans and Turkey, and the Williams Institute at UCLA.

The collective experiences of LGBTI people in the countries surveyed paint a distressing picture of the harmful effects of discrimination, harassment, exclusion and violence. One-third (32%) of all respondents (and 54% of transgender respondents) report having been victims of physical violence in the past five years. Of those cases of violence, only 17% have been reported to the police and action was taken against the perpetrator in only 16% of the most serious cases of violence reported to the police. Discrimination, is even more widespread, considering that 92% of respondents report that discrimination based on sexual orientation is common, 90% because a person is transgender and 67% because a person is intersex.

Among the most important recommendations of this reports are to:

  • Increase and expand the evidence base: researchers, advocates and policymakers should delve further into the available data to inform interventions in each country.
  • The LGBTI data gap remains large, and further research and data collection is necessary to better understand the lived experience of LGBTI people and the challenges they face.
  • Work on awareness raising needs to continue: Sensitization and capacity building programs for public servants should be expanded and strengthened. More needs to be done to increase the rights awareness of LGBTI people. The capacities of LGBTI organizations across the region should be strengthened.
  • A lot more work needs to be done to close the implementation gap: Governments should use the survey findings to identify implementation gaps related to the EU accession process, especially for Chapter 23: judiciary and fundamental rights and chapter 24: justice, freedom and security.
  • Governments should improve the criminal justice response to violence against LGBTI people;
  • Safe spaces should be created for LGBTI persons where they can receive services and support.

To read full report follow this link>>>>

The impact of legalization and regulation of marijuana for adults in USA

Posted on by Milutin

The legalization and regulation of marijuana for adults is associated with a drastic reduction in overall arrests, increased tax revenue, and is not adversely impacting public health or safety, according to a comprehensive report issued by the Drug Policy Alliance.

Among the report’s highlights:

  • Marijuana arrests are down. Arrests for marijuana in all legal marijuana states and Washington, D.C. have plummeted, saving states hundreds of millions of dollars and sparing thousands of people from being branded with lifelong criminal records.
  • Youth marijuana use is stable. Youth marijuana use rates have remained stable in states that have legalized marijuana for adults age 21 and older.
  • Marijuana legalization is linked to lower rates of opioid-related harm. Increased access to legal marijuana has been associated with reductions in some of the most troubling harms associated with opioids, including opioid overdose deaths and untreated opioid use disorders.
  • Calls to poison control centres and visits to emergency departments for marijuana exposure remain relatively uncommon.
  • Legalization has not made the roads less safe. DUI arrests are down in Colorado and Washington. The total number of arrests for driving under the influence, of alcohol and other drugs, has declined in Colorado and Washington, the first two states to regulate marijuana for adult use. There is no correlation between marijuana legalization and crash rates. The crash rates in both states are statistically similar to comparable states without legal marijuana laws.
  • Marijuana tax revenues are exceeding initial estimates.
  • The marijuana industry is creating jobs. Preliminary estimates suggest that the legal marijuana industry employs between 165,000 to 230,000 full and part-time workers across the country.

The full report is available online following this link>>>.

The report proposes several recommendations for the future, including the one that the tax revenues collected from marijuana sales must be reinvested in the communities most harmed by marijuana criminalization. These monies are essential to help rebuild communities most devastated by mass incarceration and the decades-long drug war by investing in programs that offer people a new start.

Global Fund Results Report

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The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria released a report today demonstrating that 27 million lives have been saved by the Global Fund partnership through the efforts of the Global Fund and its partners. This is proof of the effectiveness of the global commitment to tackle the world’s deadliest infectious diseases.

The Results Report 2018 includes key annual results achieved in countries where the Global Fund invests:

  • 17.5 million people received antiretroviral therapy for HIV.
  • 5 million people tested and treated for TB.
  • 197 million mosquito nets distributed to prevent malaria.

The progress comes against the backdrop of new threats to global health. Having reduced sharply since the peak of the epidemic, global HIV infection rates are now declining more slowly, and remain extremely high among key populations in some countries. Tuberculosis is now the leading cause of death from infectious diseases, with 1.7 million deaths per year, and the world is missing 4.1 million cases of TB every year – cases that go undiagnosed, untreated and unreported. In addition, progress against malaria has stalled. In 2016, there were 5 million more cases of malaria than 2015. With growing resistance in drugs to treat malaria and in insecticides for mosquito nets, efforts to control malaria are at stake.

Independent opinions state that if the world only maintains current levels of investments and programming against the three epidemics, internationally agreed targets for 2025 and 2030 will be unattainable.

The world risks losing control of all three epidemics. A resurgence will cost countless lives, undermine economic and human development, and threaten the health security for all people on the planet.

As the leading multilateral organization that invests in ending the 3 epidemics, funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in its Sixth Replenishment needs to increase by more than 20% to ensure a fund of between $16.8 and $18 billion for 2020 to 2022.

The Results Report 2018 is available from the Global Fund webpage following this link>>>

Global Prison Trends 2018

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Penal Reform International published today the fourth edition of the Global Prison Trends 2018 at the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. The Report is prepared in collaboration with the Thailand Institute of Justice. It includes a foreword by the Rt Hon Helen Clark, Member of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, Former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Former Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme.

The Report explores Trends in the use of imprisonment, Prison populations, Developments and challenges in prison management, The role of technology in criminal justice and prison systems and The expansion of prison alternatives. A Special Focus section looks at the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders in the era of sustainable development.

The Report clearly states that harsh criminal justice responses to drugs are a major contributor to prison overcrowding, and the ‘war on drugs’ persists in some countries with disastrous consequences. According to available UN data, 83 per cent of drug offences recorded by law enforcement and criminal justice systems are possession offences. However, more promisingly, UN bodies and an increasing number of states are rejecting this approach. Reforms include the decriminalisation of cannabis and reducing sentences for minor offences.

Recommendation 8 of the Report, based on the Sustainable Development Goals 3, 5 and 16, proposes that “States should review their drug policies in order to adopt evidence-based policies that include decriminalisation of minor offences, proportionality of sentencing, and non-custodial alternatives to imprisonment. Treatment as an alternative to imprisonment must be voluntary and human-rights compliant. Metrics to measure the outcomes of drug policies should include their impact on human rights, health and development”.

Also, Recommendation 25 proposes that “States should develop and implement alternatives to imprisonment, including restorative justice processes. A focus should be on addressing root causes of crime, including poverty and inequality, to support efforts to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Non-custodial sanctions should replace the use of prison, rather than widening the net of criminal justice control”.

The section on Health indicated that the rates for HIV, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases among prisoners remain much higher than in the general community. The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) estimates that people in prison are on average five times more likely to be living with HIV compared with adults outside prisons,263 although a higher estimate of 15 per cent is given by the World Health Organization. The Rapport recommends that “Drug prevention and treatment and HIV prevention, treatment and care should be available to people in prison at the same level is that provided in the community. Efforts to recruit sufficient healthcare staff in prisons should be doubled”.

To download the Report click on the photo of the front page>>>

International Narcotics Control Strategy Report 2017

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The U.S. State Department has published its annual two volume report consisting of Volume 1, Drugs and Chemical Control and Volume 2, Money Laundering. The report identifies countries which are either major illicit drug producers, drug-transit countries, sources of precursor chemicals used in illicit drug production, or where drug controls are an important part of the national policy. These countries are evaluated to determine the extent to which they are fulfilling the objectives of the 1988 UN Drug Convention. The report also identifies countries at the nexus of the illicit drug trade and money laundering activities, present within the countries’ financial institutions. The report discusses synthetic drug trends which are of significant concern for the U.S.

The impact of synthetic opioids is described by the report’s findings, “Specifically in the United States, fentanyl-related overdose deaths in the first half of 2017 jumped 70 percent over the same six-month period in 2016.

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 categorised as such in 2017 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>>>

HIV and TB Prevention in Sofia and Bulgaria

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“HIV and TB Prevention in Sofia and Bulgaria – Assessment of the Situation” is a report that was created under the project “Fast-track TB/HIV responses for key populations in EECA cities”. It is a regional project funded by the Global Fund, which unites the efforts of five EECA cities (Almaty, Beltsi, Odesa, Sofia and Tbilisi) to achieve sustainable city-level policies for prevention of HIV and TB. The project is coordinated by the Ukraine Alliance for Public Health. In Sofia, Bulgaria, the local coordinators are Initiative for Heath Foundation and Association “Health without Borders”.

The main objective of the report is to bring together all the available information regarding the prevention of HIV and TB in Sofia and Bulgaria and to provide it to the decision makers. The report should be used as a base for the development of a Sofia city strategy on HIV and TB, which has not been developed so far.

The evaluation was conducted in the period July – September 2017 through: analysis of data provided by the Ministry of Health and experts of the Sofia Municipality and the National Centre for Addictions; analysis of documents and previous reports; qualitative methods (interviews and focus groups with vulnerable communities and professionals); mapping of services. The results outline the gaps in service provision related to the withdrawal of the Global Fund and confirm the need of an adequate national and city responses. The book is an author’s interpretation of the data gathered through the common assessment methodology of the project.

Full report in Bulgarian and a summary in English can be found at:
http://www.initiativeforhealth.org/blog/2017/12/12/nov-doklad-s-otsenka-na-nuzhdite/

Another good news from Bulgaria is that on 21 December 2017 the City Council of Sofia adopted the new members of the Municipal Committee on prevention and control of HIV/AIDS. With this act the municipality practically re-established the Committee and gave it a new start, after few years of inaction. The Committee will consist of representatives of the City Council of Sofia, municipal administration, other relevant state and municipal institutions and NGOs.

The first meeting of the new Committee is planned for January when it is expected to give start to the development of a city HIV strategy.

The act of the re-establishment of the Committee was intensively supported through the partnerships within the project Fast-track TB/HIV responses for key populations in EECA cities, involving coordinating NGOs in Sofia and the representatives of the key populations networks.

International Narcotics Control Strategy Report

Posted on by Milutin

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>>>