To show the progress achieved, as well as the challenges faced by the National Drug Observatories of Latin America and the Caribbean, in the framework of the joint work with COPOLAD III, was the objective of the meeting that took place last Monday, October 21, in the framework of the Lisbon Addictions 2024, a congress on drugs organized annually by the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA).
The COPOLAD Drug Cooperation Program has been supporting the strengthening of NDOs for 12 years, with the aim of generating a line of work to improve scientific evidence to improve current drug policies.
The meeting in Lisbon was attended by the directors of the Observatories of Mexico, Panama, Chile, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, the head of the Latin American Observatory on Drugs of CICAD/OAS and the head of cooperation of the European Union Agency on Drugs, as well as representatives of the COPOLAD III Program.
During the session, reflections were shared on the strategic role of the NDOs in the design of drug policies and on the existing capacities for monitoring, diagnosis and production of timely information to guide risk and harm reduction policies. The challenges for research management and coordination of the NDOs continue to be a topic of concern and reflection on the part of the NDOs and the COPOLAD Program.
Among the progress achieved in COPOLAD III in this third phase of the Program are the following:
- 8 countries (Ecuador, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Dominican Republic, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela) have national resource mappings (human, institutional and financial) for research.
- 6 countries (Mexico, Panama, Dominican Republic, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela) have established and launched national research networks and have formed Scientific Advisory Committees. 3 countries are in the process (Brazil, Jamaica, Paraguay) .
- 2 countries already have National Research Agendas (Mexico and Panama) and 3 are in the process (Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Suriname).
- 7 countries have managed to strengthen the incorporation of the gender and human rights approach in research systems through the design of questionnaires and research protocols and the recording of sex-gender categories to enable data analysis.
