This meeting of the The Role of Civil Society in Supporting UN System-Wide Coordination: Research, Data Collection, and Analysis in Drug Policy was convened to discuss about the drug policy.

Daniel Werb talked about improving drug policy metrics to achieve the sustainable development goal agenda. He said that drug policy can impede progress towards achieving the sustainable development goal agenda. Sustainable Development Goal 3 is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all. In addition, SDG Target 3.3 is to end the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other communicable diseases. Also, SDG Target 3.5 is to strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse. He further explained that measurement of the impact of national drug policies is generally poor among UN member states.

Moreover, the drug policy metrics map is a tool for government, civil society and researchers to understand how UN Member States evaluate their national drug policies. It also provides an in-depth look at Member State drug policy evaluations by systematically imputing domains, metrics and indicators from government documents. Not only that, it can generate correlations between the number/types of metrics used by Member States and the drug and drug policy-related outcomes.

Meeting Title: The Role of Civil Society in Supporting UN System-Wide Coordination: Research, Data Collection, and Analysis in Drug Policy

Date/Location: Tuesday, 12 November, 2019; 15:00-16:30; Conference Room 11; United Nations Headquarters, New York, NYSpeakers:

Martin Jelsma, Programme Director, Drugs & Democracy, Transnational Institute (The Netherlands)

Rene Gabriel Lauer, Counsellor, Permanent Mission of Luxembourg;

Daniel Werb, Ph. D, Executive Director, Centre on Drug Policy Evaluation

Written by: WIT Representative, Won Ah Oh