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Mainstreaming Drugs as a Cross-Cutting Issue into Development Cooperation
Presented by Mr Christoph Berg,
Head of Project Development-oriented Drug Control Programme (DDC),GTZ, Germany
A Constant Challenge: Drugs and Development
The nexus between development and drug problems is a complex one. Drug problems create development problems – and vice versa. Poverty, lack of good governance, health and other problems provide the necessary conditions for both illicit cultivation of drug crops and production as well as drug consumption in a country or a community. At the same time drug problems pose serious obstacles to sustainable human and social development. The production of illegal drugs leads to economic dependence and to an orientation of local, even national, economic structures towards an illegal market. Often the local social and political structures adapt themselves to this development, which in turn leads to the further marginalization of often already marginalized production areas. Illicit cultivation of drug crops does not lead to a social and environmentally sustainable development.
Production, trafficking and consumption of illegal substances mostly takes place in developing and middle-income countries. Production has traditionally occurred in developing countries, while consumption in these countries has been acknowledged as an increasing problem only over the last decade. It is important to acknowledge that the traditional distinction between developing countries as drug production countries and industrial/developed countries as consumption countries is no longer valid. Poverty, lack of perspectives and unemployment in addition to high availability of illicit drugs are a breeding ground for drug abuse. This can be observed especially in countries along the trafficking routes, such as the so-called “Silk Route” that runs from Afghanistan through central Asia to Russia and Europe, where levels of heroin consumption are increasing dramatically. The rising rates of HIV/AIDS infection in Central Asian and East European countries along the drug routes are strongly linked to drug abuse and serves as a vivid example of this trend. The main victims are young people and, increasingly, young women.
The natural response of development cooperation to the close links of drug- and development problems is development-oriented drug control (DDC). DDC takes into account complex nature of illicit drugs in developing countries and aims to reduce the problems arising from both production and consumption as well as to promote sustainable development of individuals and communities. It offers a multi-sectoral and balanced approach based on two main strategies:
(1) Alternative Livelihoods (AL): AL aims at reducing the cultivation of plants for the production of illicit drugs, mainly coca and opium poppy, by improving the creation of alternative farming and non-farming income opportunities. The development of social infrastructure, social services and markets as well as strengthening good governance at all levels are important ingredients of AL. AL strategies have been developed further and implemented by the GTZ in Thailand, Laos, Peru, Columbia, Bolivia and Afghanistan.
(2) Drug Demand Reduction (DDR): DDR has traditionally been a rather neglected part of development cooperation. The need for a more consequent implementation of DDR programmes has been illustrated by the dramatic increase of drug consumption in developing countries. German development cooperation has begun to integrate DDR into its portfolio since the late 1990s.
Mainstreaming as a Tool of Development Cooperation
The process by which an institution – be it an organisation, a programme, a project – systematically and adequately incorporates a certain cross-cutting development issue into its concept and its core activities is called mainstreaming.
Although it is clear today that development issues are complex and interlinked, they have often been treated in a rather isolated manner. Statements like “Combating HIV/AIDS is a matter of the health sector” or “It is the Ministry of Counter Narcotics that should deal with drug issues” can often be heard. Drug issues must be addressed as cross-cutting issues on all levels and in all sectors of development work. Mainstreaming offers a tool for making sure that these issues are properly addressed.
Mainstreaming contributes to the achievement of the general development objective by equipping countries with the capacity to contain and reverse development problems such as HIV/AIDS or drugs. This is achieved by gradually incorporating the national response into national development processes. Mainstreaming thus needs consideration in all steps of the project cycle: initiation, planning, execution and monitoring and evaluation.
Development cooperation has accumulated quite some experience with mainstreaming. Other mainstreaming issues, such as gender, poverty reduction, HIV/AIDS and conflict prevention have been realised to varying extends during the last ten years. Especially HIV/AIDS is considered to be a widely successful example of mainstreaming. After it had been identified as a major threat to the achievement of development goals and to African societies in general, it has been mainstreamed into German development cooperation since 1998. The strategy was to take into account all actors, levels of action and sectors involved beyond specific HIV/AIDS projects. The experiences accumulated so far allow to draw first conclusions about lessons learned in the process:
(1) The success depends on the involvement of all actors in a participatory manner as well as strong leadership and technical capability within an organisation.
(2) Mainstreaming is an institutional learning process for an organization – exchange and networking within and among development organisations is necessary
(3) Monitoring and evaluation is crucial to the success. This implies that defining core indicators and minimum standards are of utmost importance
Mainstreaming Drugs in Afghanistan
The overall goals of development cooperation in Afghanistan are reconstruction and state-building. Through the financial ressources it provides to actors opposed to the creation of a stable and powerful centralized state illicit cultivation of drug crops poses a serious threat to the achievement of these goals. In 2005, the size of the illicit drug economy is estimated to be about 52% of the national GDP, while most of the drug money goes to warlords, regional commanders and militias out of governmental reach in poppy growing areas. Drug control should be taken into account not only by specialized drug control agencies, but it should rather be on the agenda for a wide range of development actors, be it on national, international, bilateral, multilateral or non-governmental level.
Despite this what seems to be a common place the majority of actors in charge of development and in charge of drug control have not reacted to the challenge in a satisfactory manner. However, the process of recognizing these facts has slowly gained momentum over the last months. It has been increasingly recognized that drug related problems represent a serious obstacle to achieving reconstruction, peace building and development goal. Drug problems hinder individual citizens, households, communities, political and economic actors as well as the government to make full use of development potentials.
Due to the scale and the nature of the drug problem, especially due to its magnitude, a multi-sectoral, coherent, more strategic and well-coordinated approach to drug control is needed. Single projects can hardly address complex drug related problems, or put differently, they can hardly be expected to succeed significantly without addressing and improving the so-called political and economic framework conditions. Elimination of illicit illicit cultivation of drug crops depends on the achievement of broader development goals, which are:
(1) Well established and strong state institutions that are a prerequisite for effective governance
(2) Functioning social protection mechanisms
(3) Promotion of licit on-farm, off-farm and non-farm income opportunities
Mainstreaming DDC offers a viable strategy to achieve these goals. Through the mainstreaming process DDC could be embedded into development policies and activities, thus maximising both the development and the counter-narcotic impact of the programmes.
By now most donors have recognized the importance of counter narcotics for the development process in Afghanistan. There is a consensus among the major development agencies on the need to mainstream drug related issues into development programmes. The World Bank, European Commission, UN and DfID have, together with the Afghan government, begun a process of mainstreaming drugs in Afghanistan. DfID, for example, has reviewed the National Development Plan and identified how interventions might be targeted or timed so as to have a better impact on the reduction of illicit opium poppy cultivation, while the World Bank has advised the Afghan Government how national priority programmes implemented under its technical guidance might be adjusted to better address the production, consumption and trafficking of illegal drugs. These processes correspond with the Afghan Counter Narcotics strategy, which calls for counter narcotics to be mainstreamed within all development assistance to the country.
These developments show that coherent concepts have been developed and widely discussed. However, the implementation on the ground has yet to be done. Now it is the time to implement the appropriate concepts, to put mainstreaming into practise, to closely monitor the developments and to consequently assess their effectiveness in addressing drug issues.
The GTZ: Actor in Mainstreaming Drugs in Afghanistan
Although both drug control and rural development are not priority areas of the Afghan-German development cooperation, the GTZ implements a small number of drug-specific projects in the fields of AL and DDR. Besides these projects we consider the mainstreaming approach as both important and promising.
The major activity of our mainstreaming work is the implementation of a Drug Profile Analysis (DPA). The DPA is an instrument for the analysis of the linkages between illicit drugs and development, the understanding of their interrelation and the development of entry points. The objective of the DPA in Afghanistan is to initiate the mainstreaming process of DDC into the Afghan-German development cooperation. As a first step the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (Bundesminsiterium für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung (BMZ)) has commissioned the GTZ EOD to perform a portfolio analysis of the actors involved in German development cooperation in Afghanistan (GTZ, KfW, DED and CIM) and to identify potential entry points.
The method is called “Focus on Drugs”. The following aspects are analysed during the portfolio check:
(1) Which (potential) impact does the illicit drug economy (IDE) have on the sector, the programme or the project?
(2) Do the activities or the interventions in the sector/programme/project directly of indirectly contribute to the IDE? Do they reduce or unintendedly promote the IDE?
(3) What are the possibilities of reducing the impact of the IDE in the respective sector/programme/project?
(4) Is there a need to adjust goals and objectives, strategies and activities, structures and resources in order to adequately and effectively respond to the drug challenge? If so, how?
It is of crucial importance not only to identify possible entry points, but to reach a common understanding and to raise awareness about the IDE and its effects on the project among all relevant actors involved.
Some Conclusions about Mainstreaming Drugs in Afghanistan
Mainstreaming drugs into reconstruction, peace building and development work in Afghanistan is urgently needed and indispensable. The steps taken so far are impressive and excellent, however, to have a satisfying impact they need to be continued, extended and intensified.
Mainstreaming drugs within all relevant sectors is the only way to make significant contributions to development as well as drug control objectives. There are no prefixed solutions or modules of counter narcotics measures that could easily be integrated into development projects since there is yet little experience with mainstreaming drugs in general. Solutions have to be tailor-made and adapted to the specific project context. They should be developed in a joint mutual effort between development projects and counter-narcotics advisors.
Mainstreaming for the sake of mainstreaming is not the objective. There are also sectors, projects and areas where mainstreaming is just not appropriate. We strongly believe that solid monitoring and evaluation is needed. The results have to be analysed in terms of efficiency and the impact on counter-narcotics issues.
Most of all, however, capacity building for a drug-sensitive and drug-specific development is needed. I think everybody can agree with this point, which is compulsory for all stakeholders involved.
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