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Speech by Mr. Stefano Berterame, Officer-in-Charge, Prevention, Treatment and Rehabilitation Unit, UNODC
Good evening everyone and thank you to The Senlis Council for inviting UNODC. I’m in a difficult position because I ‘m in my official hat because I’m representing the organisation and the Executive Director. At the same time I am a human being and I have known Eva for some time and I have feelings and a lot of things that I share with her over the course of the years.
I’ve done only 14 Commissions on Narcotic Drugs so far so I cannot claim to beat the record [of Eva Tongue] and I hope I will not beat it but I wanted to say a few things if you allow me to take some time.
First of all you heard Mr Costa in the opening of the NGO forum praising the tireless work of Eva in mobilising civil society and I think that the award The Senlis Council decided to give to her is very much welcome and it’s an obvious recognition of her work so I would not add anything there but apart from the institutional speech I have to make, if you will, allow me to provide a personal angle of my knowledge with her. Her influence has been affecting the work that I’ve done; for example with the UNODC in what used to be called the demand reduction section when UNODC was called UNDCP.
So I started in 1992 and I think in the corridors of the Commission in 1993, I met Eva and we started to discuss – I was much younger obviously then – the preparation for the first NGO forum on demand reduction.
Eva was very much able to bring together not only the NGOs that were working on demand reduction that she knew very well but she even took the step forward to involve NGOs working on more developmental issue because she understood that
if we were not involving those NGOs we were not able to make a difference so she broadened the scope of the involvement of the NGOs she knew from the International Council on Alcohol and Addictions (ICAA) or through the NGO committee she was able also to bring those NGOs also on board.
I think that was a good experience then we went together, we had regional NGO meeting in Latin America on the side of the meeting of the ICAA and Eva was the engine, if I may say so – I don’t think she would take it personally – behind the effort that also from inside the UNODC
I can say left some mark and an impact because this approach to the drug issue by working with civil society – as you know very well – at that time the CND was mostly populated with people from Ministry of Justice and policemen and there was a lot of law enforcement focus.
That left a mark because I was personally involved in 1998 in the preparation of the youth meeting in Canada that was organised with The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse (CCSA) and Jacques LeCavalier, another NGO, with youth organisation and Roger Cassilier was also involved there. It was another contact that Eva gave us and in that context the experience of the NGO forum was very much something that we had on our mind when we organised that forum that eventually produced a statement that was then brought to the General Assembly and then produced a network of NGOs that is working on prevention worldwide.
So I can personally say that in my professional work in UNODC, crossing paths with Eva was something that was very important because it gave my work and the work of the organisation a more human side. This is something that I have to recognise. Also we were talking with Eva about how at one point we were looking for someone to work on demand reduction in Pakistan. Who did we turn to? We turned to Eva and she indicated Chris van der Burgh.
He’s our colleague now and he was a member of the board of the ICAA. Eva provided us with a lot of not only information but also resources to effectively work on demand reduction.
The last thing I want to say is, if someone asked me to say something about her, I’d say in a way she was the person who brought the silent voice and the silent knowledge of practitioners, experts, civil society organisations, NGOs to the policy debate on international drug control. I think that the honour you are giving her tonight is in a way honouring this silent voice and this silent knowledge that should be heard in the policy discussion that we’re having.
Thank you very much.
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