EAST ASIA DRUG CONTROL MEETING CONCLUDES IN HANOI

EAST ASIA DRUG CONTROL MEETING CONCLUDES IN HANOI

(Reissued as received.)

VIENNA, 25 September (UN Information Service) -- Ministers and senior officials from the six signatories of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Drug Control (Cambodia, China, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and Viet Nam) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) today concluded a three-day round of bilateral and multilateral meetings on drug control in Hanoi.

The Ministerial and Senior Officials Committee meetings were held in Hanoi from 23-25 September 2003.  Le Hong Anh, Minister of Public Security, Vice-Chairman of the Viet Nam National Committee on AIDS, Drugs and Prostitution Control, chaired the opening ceremony.

The Ministerial Meeting took place on 25 September.  The inaugural opening ceremony was addressed by Vu Khoan, Deputy Prime Minister of Viet Nam.  “It is impossible without the close corporation between the nations in the region and the world”, stated Mr. Khoan in his opening remarks, to tackle the drug menace, transnational organized crime and drug-related HIV/AIDS transmission.

At the Hanoi meetings, the senior officials discussed a number of project ideas and new initiatives on drug control in the region such as treatment and rehabilitation from Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATS) abuse, demand reduction policy development, improved responses to drug-related transmission of HIV in prisons, capacity-building for opium reduction, monitoring and assessment of illicit crops in south-east Asia, implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the suppression of trafficking of illicit drugs and precursors along the Mekong River.

Sumru Noyan, Director, Division for Operations, UNODC Vienna, speaking at the meeting on behalf of the UNODC, referred to “the rapid proliferation of HIV/AIDS among injecting drug users and an explosion in ATS abuse” as the two greatest drug control challenges faced in the region today.  “Each challenge by itself has the power to destabilize the social, health and economic foundations of our societies, and will require accelerated action at the national, regional and global levels”, she said.

It has been a decade since the first MoU on Drug Control was signed in 1993 by the Governments of China, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, Thailand and the UNODC, to which Cambodia and Viet Nam became parties in 1995.

A special ceremony was held during the meetings to celebrate the tenth anniversary of successful collaborative efforts under the MoU.  The participants assessed the progress of the ongoing operations of the Subregional Action Plan in the areas of drug demand reduction, alternative development and law enforcement and also consulted on how to further enhance technical cooperation and interagency collaboration in the region in order to effectively face future challenges.

The first Ministerial Meeting was held in Beijing on 27 May 1995.  A Subregional Action Plan for Drug Control, including 11 projects at a total cost of more than $15 million, was endorsed at the meeting.  Currently, the fourth Subregional Action Plan contains 12 projects with a total cost of over $18 million.  Funding has been primarily provided by the Governments of Australia, Canada, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States.  The participating partners signed the project document titled “Support for MoU Partnership in East Asia” aimed to further strengthen the consultative process within the countries covered by the MoU and to continue to enhance the development of the Subregional Action Plan.  The funding of this project will be borne by the MoU countries, with supplementary cost-sharing arrangements with the UNODC, which is the first initiative of its kind.  This funding arrangement demonstrates the increasing commitment by the signatory countries of the MoU.

The meeting adopted the Hanoi Declaration where the signatory countries jointly declared that the illicit drug situation in East Asia requires immediate action and called for further joint policy level efforts.  They also confirmed joint collaboration and commitment in combating illicit drugs production, trafficking and consumption in the region.  The countries furthermore agreed to strengthen national capacities to fight against drugs and to extend in a proactive manner in-kind and technical assistance in support to other signatory countries.

The next Senior Officials Committee Meeting will be held in Thailand in 2004 and the next MoU Ministerial meeting will be held in Cambodia in 2005.

Further information can be obtained from the UNODC Regional Centre for East Asia and the Pacific, 14th Floor, United Nations Building, Rajdamnern Nok Avenue, Bangkok 10200, Thailand, tel.:  662 288 1777, fax:  662 281 2129, Web site:  http://www.unodc.un.or.th/

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