Director General/Executive Director
Excellencies,
UNODC is pleased to announce the results of the 2015 Afghanistan Opium Survey - a joint product of the Government of Afghanistan and UNODC.
This year's survey has brought us some good news.
The total area under opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan was estimated at 183,000 hectares in 2015, which represents a nineteen per cent decrease from the unprecedented level of 224,000 hectares reported in the previous year.
After the record peaks of the two most recent years and the resulting overproduction compared to global demand, this means that the area under opium poppy cultivation has decreased for the first time since 2009.
Opium yield per hectare was also down in all main cultivating regions, and as a result estimated opium production for 2015 fell to 3,300 tons, compared to 6,400 tons the previous year.
Looking at these outcomes more closely, a note of caution is required.
Firstly, we may be witnessing a market correction in light of the past years of oversupply versus a relatively stable demand.
Secondly, the improved technology we are using to conduct the crop monitoring and assessment has again been refined and sharpened.
Nonetheless, UNODC can confirm that there has been an overall decrease in cultivation nationally, and in major opium-producing provinces.
These positive results offer us - the Afghan Government and international community - the momentum to strengthen our resolve.
This includes continuing efforts to increase eradication, which went up by 40 per cent compared to 2014, to a total of 3,760 hectares of verified poppy eradication in 2015.
Moreover, fewer security incidences during eradication were recorded, with fewer lives lost.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I hope the survey will serve to inform policies and efforts to build on these hard-won achievements.
With the Ministry of Counternarcotics of Afghanistan as the engine, the Government has come up with a new and comprehensive National Drug Control Action Plan.
This warrants not only our full attention, but even more our full support, through coordinated technical, human and financial assistance.
It is absolutely critical that the Afghan authorities and the international community continue to work together to address the priority challenges the government has identified.
These include the need for effective measures to counter the narcotics trade that is undermining the country's development and fuelling terrorism, as well as action on related organized crime, corruption and illicit financial flows.
UNODC remains committed to providing targeted support through our Afghanistan Country Programme, the Regional Programme for Afghanistan and Neighbouring Countries and the Programme for Central Asia, as well as through global initiatives, including the Container Control Programme, the Maritime Crime Programme and Networking the Networks.
UNODC also supports the new National Drug Control Action Plan and the recent government initiative for a National Mobilization against Narcotics.
Involving communities, civil society, media and development agencies is essential, in particular to provide evidence-based prevention and treatment services for illicit drug use and HIV, and to promote economic development and alternative livelihoods.
Regional and inter-regional partnerships are also indispensable in this fight, and we are helping to strengthen counter-narcotics cooperation with Afghanistan's neighbours and beyond.
In this respect, I would like to highlight the high-level meeting with Partners of Afghanistan and Neighbouring Countries that UNODC will help to organize in December in Vienna.
Excellencies,
A question that may be on your minds is whether the positive figures reported in the 2015 Afghanistan opium survey can be sustained.
It is imperative that we recognize the fact that the answer to this question is up to us.
Whether we can sustain meaningful progress depends on the resolve of the Afghan government, and on the international community, which must devote the needed resources, and make a long-term commitment to addressing a threat that imperils all our societies.
UNODC stands ready to support you, as always.
I would like to conclude by thanking the Government of Afghanistan, and the donors who have helped to make this survey possible.
Thank you.