Opening Remarks of Pino Arlacchi
Executive Director,
to the
Resumed forty-fourth session
of the
Commission on Narcotic Drugs
Vienna
12 December 2001
Although it has been nearly nine months since the Commission met in March, the intervening period has been busy. The pattern of intersessional meetings and informal consultations that has been established has created an enhanced dynamism.
This change dates to a large extent from the 1998 Special Session of the General Assembly. The Action Plans approved by Member States in connection with that event have added a sense of determination to international drug control.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank in particular your Chairman and the Extended Bureau for their hard work in preparing these regular consultations.
One of the concrete results of this new way of working is the consolidated biennial report on the implementation of the outcome of the Special Session. It has been possible to incorporate the findings contained in questionnaires from an additional twenty-nine Governments. This brings the total to one hundred nine. From data available we, for example, that ninety-one of the one hundred nine Governments have national drug control plans in place. Nearly three quarters of those responding have already incorporated the Special Sessions Guiding Principles on Demand Reduction into their national strategies. The report before you is quite detailed, and I will not go into it at length.
All this groundwork is important to enable the Commission to have a sound basis for the preparation of its Ministerial segment in 2003, which will assess progress in meeting the first set of deadlines from the Special Session.
Turning to the Fund budget for the next biennium, the main element in your operational segment, I will offer only a few general remarks. The intersessional meetings have given Member States an opportunity to receive detailed briefings on the budget and to ask questions. The budget has also been considered and endorsed by ACABQ, whose report is available to you.
The main priorities reflected in the budget grow out of the 1998 Special Session. There is an overall reduction of some ten per cent in the size of the budget. This decrease is in the Programme Budget and reflects our assessment of the resources likely to be available during the next biennium.
The Support Budget does not have the same degree of elasticity as the Programme Budget. A certain level of basic infrastructure, funded through the Support Budget, is required to maintain the capacity to deliver programmes. In the event that income to the Fund exceeds projections, the Programme Budget can be expanded without any increase in the Support Budget.
The Support Budget is heavily reliant on general purpose contributions. I must reiterate our concern that this portion of the income to the Fund remains static or may even be falling. We are at a point where nearly all general purpose income must go to the support budget.
This removes flexibility in planning, making the programme decisions heavily reliant on earmarking of contributions. It also places many of our staff in a vulnerable position. In line with your wishes, we have reduced the Fund balance from previous years to the point that we now rely essentially on income on a year-to-year basis. In the absence of the cushion that was formerly available through the Fund balance, we have had to restrict all contract extensions to one year, a decision that has raised concerns among the staff. We enter 2002 confident that we can maintain the support infrastructure for this year. But we have no guarantees for 2003.
We have updated the Paper on "draft guidelines for the use of general purpose contributions", in order to reflect the new budget. We look forward to your discussion and approval of these guidelines. They are an important step towards a longer-term solution to the problem.
Although your agenda does not call for it, I would like to take a few minutes of your time to address the question of Afghanistan.
As you know, Afghanistan was the source of three-quarters of the worlds illicit opium in 1999 and nearly as much in 2000. In the season leading to this years harvest, however, a ban on cultivation was imposed by the Taliban. The result was a decrease in over ninety-four per cent in the opium harvest this year. This resulted in an overall decrease of two-thirds worldwide. But the existence of large surplus stocks from the two previous Afghan harvests has limited the effect on global heroin markets. By our estimates, this would only start to happen if the ban were sustained for another year.
We helped launch an urgent initiative to provide humanitarian assistance to farmers severely affected by the sudden ban, a situation aggravated by serious drought. Such assistance was also felt to be important to promote sustaining of the ban. Support was being provided by traditional donors and donors within the region. Work began in Nangarhar Province in August but had to be interrupted in September.
There are recent reports that opium has been planted in some of the key crop areas that will be harvested next year the planting season is just now ending. We are not yet able to verify the extent of this resumed cultivation. Countermeasures are also difficult to define for the immediate short term. The situation calls for close attention on the part of the international community.
We are actively engaged in the discussions related to the post-conflict period in Afghanistan. This involves the Afghanistan Support Group, as well as the various UN machinery set up in New York and at the field level, where we have already re-established a presence in Kabul.
While I felt it my duty to brief you on the situation in Afghanistan, I want also to ask for your assistance. Your Governments will be involved to varying degrees in shaping the post-conflict agenda in Afghanistan, be it through the UN or other mechanisms. It is absolutely essential that all of you lend your voices to the call for serious attention to drug control in post-conflict Afghanistan.
There will be many voices raised in support of many different issues. But I believe firmly that the continuation of opium poppy cultivation, heroin manufacture and drug trafficking in Afghanistan will jeopardize the chances for peace and stability. The international community needs to speak out and speak with one voice if we are to take advantage of this very narrow window of opportunity to maintain the reduction in illicit opium production in Afghanistan and worldwide.
Mr. Chairman. On a personal note, this will be my last Commission session. In agreement with the Secretary-General, I will be relinquishing my duties as Executive Director and Director-General at the end of the year.
The last four years have been full of challenges. They have also been full of achievements.
The Special Session in 1998, with the specific objectives and targets that we helped to define, was a watershed event in international drug control. It changed the way in which we perceive the drug issue and the way in which we work. It brought demand reduction to the forefront of the international drug control debate.
The Palermo Convention, signed by 124 States in December 2000, created the most powerful instrument available to the international community to combat organized crime.
Together we have substantially reduced illicit crop cultivation in major producing countries such as Bolivia, Peru, Laos and Afghanistan, and we helped consolidate previous results in Pakistan and Thailand. We have overcome skepticism, and we are demonstrating that we can achieve unprecedented results, provided we remain focused on our common goal.
We built a package of technical assistance on the Tajik-Afghan border, which in the year 2000 led to heroin seizures with a value equivalent to 200 times the yearly budget of UNDCP.
We uncovered in Afghanistan an infrastructure of 40 deposits and laboratories, and shared the evidence with members of the UN Security Council and all Member States last year.
We brought to the attention of the international community the efforts of Iran in curbing major opiates traffic towards Western Europe, thereby increasing drug control cooperation between that country and the international community.
We launched an "offshore initiative" in the area of anti money laundering, which led to the signature of an agreement between 34 offshore jurisdictions and ODCCP to develop legislation that complies with international standards on money laundering and financial transparency. We also promoted international collaboration for the recovery of assets acquired through illegal means.
We are proud of these achievements, because we have spared no effort in pursuit of our mandate and the drug control objectives of the international community. We are also confident in the knowledge that our work was supported by a great number of Member States.
Our bottom line was results, and I am sure that UNDCP will continue to deliver accomplishments.
I want to express my appreciation to all of you for the support you have given to UNDCP, and to me personally since my arrival in 1997.
I also want to take this opportunity to thank the staff of UNDCP and CICP. They are a dedicated, hard-working and competent team. As Member States, and as donors to the Fund of UNDCP, you have a responsibility to the staff to ensure them an adequate degree of job security and to respect the multinational character of the international civil service.
In closing, I call on all of you to extend your full cooperation to my successor.