Cooperation between institutions to prevent and treat drug use

The city of Almaty in Kazakhstan hosted a regional dialogue between state institutions and civil society with the aim of strengthening and exchanging good practices in the field of drug treatment and prevention with the support of the Central Asian Drug Action Programme (CADAP), funded by the European Union.

The aim of this regional workshop was to discuss the latest trends and developments in the field of drugs. Furthermore, it aims to enhance the role of civil society in drug demand reduction and to support regional collaboration in terms of exchange and implementation of best practices in the context of drug prevention and treatment.

The event brought together the main Central Asian state authorities involved in drug reduction, as well as representatives of the non-governmental sector. Mr. Cosimo Lamberti, EU representative, expressed the idea of joint cooperation between state institutions and civil society for an optimal implementation of the CADAP priority areas in the field of drug demand reduction. Mr. Bakhytzhan Amirkhanov from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan expressed his confidence that cooperation within the framework of CADAP 7 will be effective and will allow solving a number of drug prevention problems, especially among vulnerable groups of the population.

The participants presented the experiences of their countries and learned about European approaches and best practices on the establishment of cooperation mechanisms between state institutions and civil society in the treatment of drug use disorders and prevention of drug use.

In addition, new trends in the field of drugs have been presented with the example of several countries and the possible role of civil society in drug demand reduction has been discussed in working groups, as well as the analysis and suggestion of measures to be included in the roadmap on strengthening national policy, monitoring, prevention and treatment.