Director General/Executive Director
Your Royal Highness,
Distinguished panellists,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
My thanks to Thailand, Germany, Colombia and Peru for organizing this event on alternative development and the 2030 Agenda.
The 2030 Agenda recognizes that in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals the international community must also address drug challenges.
Efforts to realize targets under the SDGs and balanced, health and rights-based approaches to drugs are complementary and mutually reinforcing, a fact also highlighted by the outcome document of the UN General Assembly Special Session on the world drug problem.
The UNGASS outcome document also confirms Member States' support for alternative development as an essential component of balanced drug control strategies, with the potential to break the vicious cycle trapping poor farmers, enabling viable livelihoods free from illicit cultivation.
UNODC has been supporting countries in implementing alternative development programmes for forty years.
The 2015 edition of our flagship World Drug Report featured a thematic chapter on alternative development, while last year's report focused on the interplay between development and drug challenges.
Our experience and analysis confirm that alternative development works, but only when initiatives are integrated into a broader development and governance agenda.
The success of alternative development programmes largely depends on such factors as transfer of skills and access to land, credit and infrastructure, as well as marketing support and access to markets, while promoting environmental sustainability and community ownership.
And critically, alternative development can only be sustained with adequate funding and strong political commitment.
The countries that have organized today's event have shown such long-standing leadership and commitment.
Here at the CND and in many other fora, you have dedicated time and resources to promote the exchange of best practices and local experiences, which deserves to be commended.
UNODC worked closely with the governments of Thailand and Peru in convening two High Level International Conference on Alternative Development - ICAD 1, which was initiated in Bangkok and held in Lima in 2012, and ICAD 2, which took place in Bangkok in 2015.
Your continued efforts have resulted in the adoption and promotion of the landmark UN Guiding Principles on Alternative Development, which are rooted in the international drug conventions and are fully in line with the 2030 Agenda.
The Guiding Principles have helped to solidify and advance development-oriented approaches in addressing illicit crop cultivation by providing a much-needed normative framework that is flexible, enabling countries and communities to adapt them to their particular needs.
For example, in Southeast Asia the action plan of the Mekong MoU on Drug Control has helped to adapt and promote the Guiding Principles to the sub-regional context, and support the sharing of alternative development best practices.
Since the adoption of the 2030 Agenda in 2015, UNODC has further scaled up alternative development efforts in the field.
We are delivering evidence-based technical assistance in the countries most affected by illicit crop cultivation, including Afghanistan, Myanmar, Lao PDR, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.
New funding resources for alternative development have been mobilized in Afghanistan, Colombia, Myanmar and Lao PDR, where initiatives are helping to address peace and security, food shortages, gender mainstreaming, environmental protection and health.
But nevertheless, we need the international community to further step up its support if alternative development is to have a chance to succeed.
I hope events like this, with the participation of countries with first-hand experience of alternative development and donors such as Germany, can help close this gap between commitment and action.
Looking ahead, we must further strengthen research and regular monitoring of key indicators, which will enable the international community to better understand and evaluate the contribution of alternative development to SDG targets.
UNODC's longstanding expertise and experience remains at your disposal to help monitor progress, in line with SDG 17, and make alternative development work for the people who need it most.
Thank you.