United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

East Asia and Pacific

		View by sections
		Project Code and Sector Project Background and Justification Immediate Objective, Outputs and Main Activities Counterpart, Institutional Setting and Implementing Arrangements Financial Information

AD/CMB/H83 - Development of Community-Based Drug Abuse Counselling, Treatment and Rehabilitation Services in Cambodia

1. Project Code and Sector

2. Project Background and Justification

This project makes a contribution towards the Millennium Development Goals, adopted in the United Nations Millennium Declaration of 8 September 2000. In particular Goal 1, "Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger" and Goal 6, target 7: "Have halted by 2015 and begun to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS". It also contributes to achieving the UNGASS goal of reducing supply and demand of illegal drugs by 2008 and follows the recommendations set out in the Guiding Principles of Demand Reduction (Resolution S-20/3). Further, the project is in line with the UNODC operational priorities for the medium term, especially #3 "Balance prevention and enforcement activities" and #6: "Leverage resources to exploit the power of partnerships".

Since the mid-1990's, South-East Asian drug trafficking organizations have increasingly been using Cambodia for transit smuggling of heroin and amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), including methamphetamine, produced in the so-called 'Golden Triangle', especially Myanmar's Eastern Shan State, to markets in the Asia-Pacific region, such as Vietnam and Australia, as well as further afield including the USA, Canada and Europe. The production, trafficking and abuse of methamphetamines in particular have expanded significantly in many countries of Asia in the latter years of the 1990's and Cambodia has not been spared this menace. Fuelled by illegal imports of precursor chemicals primarily from China, Taiwan, Vietnam and Thailand, ATS are now being not only abused but also produced within the country. A significant proportion of the ATS trafficked from within the region through Cambodia, as well as domestic ATS production, have been increasingly targeted at the Cambodian population itself, especially youth and people working in labour-intensive industries.

The exponential increase in the habit of using illicit drugs, together with the associated risk of HIV/AIDS transmission through unsafe sexual practices whilst under the influence of drugs as well as the alarming increase of intravenous drug use and spread of blood-borne diseases through needle sharing, adds to an already serious situation and poses a grave threat to the future prosperous and harmonious development of Cambodia. Based upon data collected by local NGOs working with disadvantaged youth, intravenous drug use in Cambodia, which was almost zero two years ago, rising to 2% last year and is now in the region of 3-4% of all drug abusers, is today as high as 18% amongst certain groups, such as street children, in Phnom Penh. Experience from other countries, such as Thailand and the Philippines, indicates that there is still a window of opportunity to rapidly raise the awareness of society at all levels, and particularly among at-risk groups, of the dangerous possibilities of HIV infection associated with drug abuse and to establish an effective network of basic counselling, treatment and rehabilitation services to those already abusing such substances.

Background and justification

The present institutional and resource situation, together with the deteriorating abuse, trafficking and production trends seen in an overall environment of relative social and political instability indicate that Cambodia is greatly at-risk of experiencing a worsening drug abuse situation than that already evident. The country is regarded as the weakest of the countries in the Mekong region that signed the MOU with the UNODC - a fact that is increasingly taken advantage of by criminal elements in the country and by international organized crime syndicates. UNODC has been acting as a trusted partner of the NACD, the central coordinating agency for drug control. The Government of Cambodia and UNODC have been partnering towards strengthening the NACD Secretariat as part of UNODC-Government of Cambodia's short and medium term cooperation goals. As mentioned above, during the week of November 17, 2003 NACD and UNODC have begun preliminary talks concerning the establishment of a working group on drug control strategy and policies.

The UNODC and the Government of Cambodia have been collaborating in at least ten regional projects in the areas of demand reduction, alternate development, law enforcement and institutional development since the mid-1990's. Within the framework of these projects, a large number of Cambodian personnel representing a wide range of technical sectors have participated in numerous training programmes and planning activities.

During 1998, UNODC carried out a comprehensive assessment of the national drug control situation. In early 1999 a UNODC study reviewed the drug demand/abuse situation and identified initiatives that would improve the situation in certain priority areas, and subsequently activities have been initiated together with the NACD Secretariat and the NGO sector. In mid-2001, the UNODC opened a Liaison Office in Cambodia and began implementation of a four-year project to develop the NACD Secretariat's capacity as well as to develop a national drug control strategy in partnership with the Government, civil society and the private sector. The current project is part of this exercise, one that the Government of Cambodia supports. This testifies to their genuine desire to address drug abuse issues from a community led, and community managed, perspective.

UNODC has demonstrable experience in helping to develop replicable models of treatment centres in developing countries that utilize and adapt research findings to local circumstances and has extensive experience in assessing the effectiveness of interventions and disseminating evaluation results. Facilitating replication through 'model programmes' that can serve as in-service training for experts and service providers, together with supporting a critical mass of expertise anchored in practice and by drawing upon lessons learnt at the regional level and disseminating knowledge through a variety of mechanism and through networking amongst treatment centres for mutual support and further growth, are additional values brought to this project by UNODC.

The global mandate of the UNODC in drug control activities, and the recognition given to it by donors and counterparts as an independent and neutral agency of the United Nations system, together with its long history of successful project implementation, places this agency in a formidable situation to implement this project effectively.

3. Immediate Objective, Outputs and Main Activities

Objective:
Cambodia's drug abuse trends have begun to accelerate and have great potential to severely undermine the social and economic development of the country. Current widespread poverty, and vulnerability to poverty, in Cambodia is likely to be exacerbated by drug abuse and associated problems. This project will contribute to the broad development goal of,

' Reducing the rapidly increasing trend of drug abuse and to thereby positively impact upon the social and economic development of Cambodia.'

The immediate Outcome of the project is,

' To increase the capacity of Cambodian healthcare professionals, both at the governmental and non-governmental level, to respond to the needs of people using illicit drugs, through development of coordinated, community-based drug abuse counselling, treatment and rehabilitation care programmes.'

Output 1:
Along with NACD, hold a meeting of all relevant stakeholders and establish a work-group to discuss the best way to develop a drug abuse treatment and rehabilitation system in Cambodia.

Output 2:
Establish Drug Abuse Service Centres that provide "open access" services such as outreach and counseling as well as "structured" treatment and rehabilitation services to people at-risk.

Output 3:
Improve capacity of service providers so that they can respond to drug abuse issues through providing coordinated community-based counselling, outreach, treatment and rehabilitation services

Output 4:
Establish models of coordinated community-based best practices in drug abuse counseling, outreach, treatment and rehabilitation approaches and techniques for effective implementation within the socio-economic environment of Cambodia.

Output 5:
Increased number of people reached through outreach, counseling, treatment and rehabilitation services.

Output 6:
Selected best practices portfolio of medical, psychiatric and social training courses and curriculum are adopted into Cambodian Drug Abuse Service Network.

4. Counterpart, Institutional Setting and Implementing Arrangements

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) will be the executing agency through the Regional Centre in Thailand's Project Office/CMB/F14 project office in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It is expected that qualified NGOs and government entities with the basic infrastructure and initial human resource capacity to undertake the development of existing, or planned, drug abuse counselling, treatment and rehabilitation services will be subcontracted for implementation of the training and piloting which constitutes approximately 60% of the entire project budget.

A drug abuse treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration working group is already being developed and will be operational prior to the commencement of this project. The working group will be under the chairmanship of the NACD Secretariat comprising representatives from governmental and non-governmental agencies with a responsibility in providing, or an interest in developing, drug use treatment, rehabilitation and/or reintegration policy, programmes and/or projects and/or such agencies with a mandate or interest in providing support to the establishment and/or functioning of such policies, programmes and/or projects, including - but not limited to - those concerning health and HIV/AIDS, education, social affairs, human rights, justice and good governance within Cambodia.

5. Financial Information