CADAP continues the 3rd round of Technical Committees meetings to review the progress of ongoing activities, to obtain feedback from national partners and discuss future plans and priorities. Next meeting from the series has been conducted in hybrid format in Ashgabat on March 31, 2023. The action’s main stakeholders were convened to the event, including the EU delegation to Turkmenistan and the Government partners – Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, Ministry of Interior Affairs of Turkmenistan, State Committee on Physical Culture and Sports, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Healthcare and Medical Industry and Youth Organization of Turkmenistan named after Makhtumkuli.
Mr. Yakyp Saparov, MFA representative opened the event and highlighted that Turkmenistan is the venue for major multilateral forums and meetings on drug issues. The Fifty-fifth Session of the Subcommission on Illicit Drug Trafficking and Related Matters in the Near and Middle East was held in November 2022 in Ashgabat. He also emphasized that the 2nd CADAP Programme Steering Committee will take place on July 5, 2023 in Ashgabat.
In her welcoming remarks Ms. Renata Wrobel, Deputy Head of the EUD to Turkmenistan mentioned the efforts of the Government of Turkmenistan in combating the drug trafficking and consumption inside the country and contributing to the overall regional stability. She stated that drug trafficking and drug abuse remain one of the main development challenges of the world and stressed the importance of the potential and the prospects of cooperation between CADAP and Turkmenistan.
Besides discussing the results to highlight, sharing the opinions and determining the plan of actions for the next year, a separate session was dedicated to Evidence-based Drug policy and Data collection improvement. CADAP continues enriching the knowledge and insight of national partners on international drug policy introduced both in the EU countries and internationally. The Drug Policy Development Manual is being developed for CA countries with a methodology for the elaboration of drug policies.
CADAP provides technical assistance to CA countries for the improvement of data collection and analysis systems and the implementation of a Drug Early Warning Systems. Currently, information from each CA country is being collected and consolidated to assess the current situation of data collection and drug early warning systems. Based on the findings, a Road Map with methodology to improve data collection and information analysis systems will be developed together with the Handbook for the implementation of Early Warning Systems in Central Asia.
It should be noted that a wide range of activities are being planned for Turkmenistan for current phase for CADAP, among which are – the development of a roadmap on drug control, production and dissemination of targeted studies upon the request of national partners, development of preventive and treatment programmes in accordance with European standards, expert meetings and internships at European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addictions (EMCDDA), field visits to Spain, national and regional trainings.
