Community-Based Demand Reduction for Three Key Townships in the Northern Shan State (AD/MYA/00/E76)

Introduction

The community-based demand reduction project aims to reduce the incidence of drug use in Myanmar's Northern Shan State. The project targets three areas, Lashio, Kutkai and Muse and it currently covers 23 villages. The initiative counts on the participation of local and international NGOs, which provide their expertise on particular areas of the project, such as vocational training and survey implementation. The main objective of the project is to strengthen the ability of communities and local institutions to carry out community-based demand reduction programmes. Using community based offices the project provides and monitors revolving loans for community-based demand reduction and social development activities to villages within these townships. The project also addresses the issues of financial and institutional sustainability to ensure that the programme can be continued by local institutions after UNODC assistance concludes.

The E76 project commenced in September 2000 and was initially intended to run until December 2003. Activities continued into 2004, however, with the support of a sub-regional project (F89). An additional budget was subsequently allotted for an extension until June 2006.[ top]

Objective

Project Objective: To achieve a permanent reduction in the incidence of drug use in three townships in the Northern Shan State through community-based demand reduction programmes.

Specifically, the E76 project objective aims to achieve a reduction in the number of persons using opium, heroin, amphetamine-type stimulants and other illicit narcotic drugs and to increase understanding on the dangers of drug use within the region. The three areas targeted are Lashio, Kutkai and Muse in the Northern Shan State.[ top]

Strategy

The E76 project promotes a community-based approach with a focus on institutional sustainability and incorporates methods of community self-financing. Instead of providing direct grants for village-level projects, revolving funds are used to build financial sustainability into the programme. The project intends to broaden the scope and impact of community-based demand reduction activities in an important target region. The overall project strategy is incorporated under the following headlines:

Institutional Sustainability
The priority of the project is to build sustainable institutional capacity to support ongoing community-based drug demand reduction programmes in Myanmar. Institutional capacity is achieved by working with and providing training for, participants from relevant departments. In addition, attempts have been made to expand the capacities of these departments by supporting the establishment of three administrative centres for community-based demand reduction.

Loans from Revolving Funds/Community Self-Financing
Rather than providing grants to villages on a pilot basis, all finances for project development are dispensed as loans from revolving funds. In addition to community development and anti-drugs activities, these loans may be used for the establishment of trust funds so that individual villages can build independent revolving funds. Participating communities are also encouraged to commit funds of their own, as financial interest imbues a greater sense of responsibility and ownership in project activities.

Community Management
While communities are being provided with training and materials for preventive education programmes, it is intended that decision-making, management of the design, planning and implementation of village-level projects, are managed by the community. This approach intends to build a stronger sense of responsibility and ownership of programmes and improve the capacity of communities to tackle and solve their own problems. Additionally, the objective is that each community assesses its own needs and decides how it intends to achieve the programme objectives. Community leaders discuss and negotiate the proposed project activities with the respective Township Programme Assistants (TPAs). The community is responsible for planning and implementing the activities under the guidance of the TPAs with the UNODC Project Manager playing an overall supervisory role in the three townships.

Data collection and verification of project components is conducted by the use of surveys and focus-group discussions undertaken at the start and end of the project. A post-project evaluation will be conducted one year after the project's final completion, in order to evaluate whether the attempt to build financial and institutional sustainability has been successful.[ top]

Project Components

Component 1: A local capacity that fits within the present national governing framework to sustain an ongoing community-based demand reduction programme.

Main Activities:

• Preparation of training kits and training sessions including management of revolving loan funds and community development.

Component 2: A community-based demand reduction programme that is both financially and institutionally sustainable specifically designed and implemented for the three priority townships in the Northern Shan State.

Main Activities:

• Selection of target villages;
• Community level capacity building/human resource development;
• Identification of community projects;
• Disbursement of loans;
• Treatment and rehabilitation activities;
• Education and information activities;
• Assessment of potential for community self-financing;
• Information-sharing.

Component 3: Increased access to primary health care and HIV/AIDS prevention and empowerment of women, within the target communities.

Main Activities:

• Primary health care and HIV/AIDS preventive education training sessions;
• Facilitation of proper access to safe drinking water and low cost fly-proof latrines;
• Female empowerment activities.

Component 4: Quantitative and qualitative analysis of the drug use problem in the three target townships at the commencement and conclusion of the project.

Main Activities:

• Conduct Baseline Survey;
• Conduct Impact Evaluation Survey;
• Conduct Post-Project Evaluation.[ top]

Background

As a major drug producing country, Myanmar faces a serious and growing internal illicit drug use problem. According to the 2005 Myanmar Opium Survey conducted by UNODC in cooperation with the country's Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC), the most commonly consumed drugs in the Shan State are opium (74% of the total addicted population) and heroin (15% of the total addicted population).

The key transport corridor between Mandalay and Muse has seen considerable economic expansion and social change over the past 15 years. Variation in social, religious and cultural values and increased social dislocation in some areas have contributed to a rise in drug use. Drug demand and other social problems among villages in the region are interrelated and mutually reinforcing, and external socio-economic forces are contributing significantly to these problems.

The use of heroin is most pertinent in the Northern Shan and Kachin States, where the drug is most often taken by intravenous injection. Unchecked widespread use of heroin and a relative absence of information regarding the associated spread of blood-borne diseases have resulted in these areas having one of the highest rates of HIV infection among Injecting Drug Users (IDUs) in the world. UNAIDS estimates that in 2004 the national HIV prevalence rate amongst IDUs was 34%. The severity of the situation warrants an immediate and far-reaching response.

UNODC now benefits from extensive experience in community-based drug demand reduction in the region. Trial programmes in villages on the Myanmar/China and Myanmar/Thai borders were successfully completed between 1993 and 1997, in addition to a sub regional highland project targeting communities in six countries of the region from 1998 to 2000. Although successful, these initial projects encountered major difficulties, partly because the issue of financial and institutional sustainability was not adequately addressed, in response to which subsequent initiatives were designed.

During the first three years of implementation, the project witnessed a reduction in opium cultivation in the Northern Shan State. Marginal farm labourers including women and children, who once worked in the poppy fields and are now gradually returning to their villages, are facing the challenges of livelihood insecurity and HIV/AIDS high-risk behaviour. Prior to completion of the 2000-2003 stage of the project, communities within and outside of the target areas requested further education and training sessions pertaining to HIV/AIDS, trafficking in persons, gender, literacy and vocational training for women in the area of income generation.
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