Representatives of 25 African countries backed the UN's global anti-drug strategy at a special session of the General Assembly, held on 8-10 June 1998 in New York. They supported new initiatives from the UN International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP). The drug trade can be stopped, said UNDCP Executive Director Pino Arlacchi, who outlined an ambitious plan "to create a drug-free 21st century" before the gathering of 150 member states.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan opened the meeting by stating that the world should not be rigidly categorized into zones of consumption (North America and Europe) or zones of production (South America and Asia) or transit zones (Africa) because we are a "family of nations."
-- Semakula Kiwanuka
Uganda's Ambassador to the UN
Photo: UN / J. Bu
This view was supported by Mr. Dumiso Dabengwa, the Zimbabwean Home Affairs Minister, who said, "That some countries are centres of production while others are transit points or markets does not make any material difference in this age of globalization. Failure by the international community to cooperate fully will only enable the drug barons to effectively exploit such weaknesses to maximum advantage."
If the theme of international cooperation on drugs resonated in the presentations by the 31 heads of government addressing the General Assembly, there was nevertheless a lack of agreement about solutions to the world drug problem with developing countries often pitted against developed ones. For the latter, as principal consumers of narcotics, the paramount issue is stopping supply through police measures such as seizures, arrests and crop eradication. In the developing world the focus is typically on enhanced infrastructure assistance, rural development and poverty reduction. Such views are consistently advanced in Africa, where the Organization of African Unity in March 1998 adopted an African Common Position on Drug Control, underscoring the necessity of a multi-sectoral approach to the continent's drug problem.
Developing countries -- whether in Africa, South America or Asia -- cannot defeat the drug trade without attacking poverty, which often plays a key role in the cultivation, trafficking and abuse of narcotics. As Ugandan Ambassador Semakula Kiwanuka told the special session, "there is a symbiotic relationship between poverty and drugs.... Sustainable economic development which provides skills and jobs, which provides road communications to open up rural areas, is a necessary strategy.... While we agree that law enforcement measures are absolutely necessary at every stage of the drug cycle, we put equal emphasis on alternative development programmes."
While previous anti-drug approaches gave priority to crop eradication, which destroyed arable land in the process and exacerbated rural poverty, the UNDCP strategy places a premium on crop substitution, access to better health, education and social services. UNDCP is currently helping Ghana, Ethiopia, Madagascar, Nigeria and Swaziland to counteract the cultivation of cannabis, which is the most widely consumed illicit drug in Africa. Grants, rather than loans, are provided, thereby negating part of the attraction of drug money to poor farmers.
African countries also are receiving technical assistance from UNDCP in the form of laboratories for the analysis of drugs that are seized. The Gambia and Namibia have benefited from such aid, which provides resources for the quality control of legal pharmaceuticals as well. Germany, according to a report on drug control and development presented at the meeting, contributed $1.5 mn to UNDCP for the development of national narcotics control laboratories in Africa during 1987-93.
Africa is neither a large-scale drug consuming nor producing region, making its situation different from that of most of the developing and developed world, several African ambassadors and ministers pointed out. African states are frequently transit sites for drug trafficking, requiring increased funding for law enforcement agencies. Indeed, representatives from Botswana, Angola and Sierra Leone called upon UNDCP to increase its support to anti-narcotics agencies, providing needed training in drug control methodologies. This assistance is important to the overall offensive against criminal drug syndicates, which rely upon porous borders and weak customs procedures to penetrate developing countries, they noted.
Although UNDCP, established by the General Assembly in 1990, is a valuable asset for anti-drug activities, it remains underfunded according to Mr. Arlacchi, with a budget of $165 mn for 1998-99, the great bulk of which is to be obtained through voluntary contributions from donor nations.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are taking part in the struggle against drugs by confronting the problem at the community level. Mr. Taye Wah Wan Chat Kwong, the Permanent Representative of Mauritius, cited the work being done at the Dr. Idrice Goomany Centre in his country, which faced a serious heroin problem among its young urban male population in 1986. By creating the Teen Hope Project, the centre was able to significantly reduce consumption, while redirecting former drug abusers into productive social life.
Similarly, in South Africa, said Dr. Solomon Rataemane, a psychiatrist, during a panel discussion on drugs and development, collaboration among community groups is important in reversing the trend toward drug abuse, crime, and unemployment in poverty-stricken areas. NGOs are instrumental in disseminating information on drug abuse to young people throughout the townships, he added.
At the end of the "drug summit," the General Assembly adopted by consensus a political declaration committing member states to measurable results in reducing the demand for drugs by 2008. The declaration urged nations to work with UNDCP to halt money-laundering operations and illicit crop cultivation. It also called for greater judicial cooperation among states in the fight against drugs.
