To Enhance Sustainability of Regional Capacity

Around 2000  law enforcement officers of participating countries received training in the framework of NATO-Russia Council project. More than 90 of them promoted to executive positions and some of the largest drug seizures are report to have been made by officers trained under the project. The NATO-Russia Council (NRC) Counter-Narcotics Training Project for Afghan, Central Asian and Pakistani law enforcement personnel is a flagship project of the NRC. It is a unique NRC initiative, which has been successfully implemented since 2006. The project is a joint endeavour of the NRC and the project's beneficiary countries which contributes to building regional sustainable capacity. As NRC Ministers originally agreed, the project continues to aim at delivering high-quality, professional counter-narcotics training to mid-level officers from the seven beneficiary countries, and compliments existing regional and international counter-narcotics training initiatives, which are facilitated and coordinated by the UNODC. Thus, the NRC project also contributes to the development of a more integrated approach to counter-narcotics efforts throughout the region in addition to being a symbol of political solidarity among NRC members. During the last NRC Summit in Lisbon, Heads of State in their Joint Statement praised the successes of the project and welcomed the inclusion of Pakistan to the project (from November, 2010).  On 8 December 2005, the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) decided to implement a mid-level drug control training pilot project in Central Asia and Afghanistan and approached UNODC's Regional Office for Central Asia to implement the project. Following a 2-year pilot phase, the NATO-Russia Council Executive Steering Committee decided to extend the project which eventually became a continuing NRC initiative in April 2008. Initially the two-year project was budgeted at US$927,000. The project is currently extended until December 2012 with a budget of US$3,508,600. The funding is provided by member states of the NATO-Russia Council though its International Secretariat in Brussels. Significant in-kind support has been received from a number of NATO governments, Finland and Russia.  In-kind support (in 2010) has been generously provided by Belgium, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Romania, Russia, Turkey and the USA.