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OAS ANTI-DRUG COMMISSION TO VISIT HAITI NEXT WEEK

The head of the Organization of American States’ (OAS) anti-drug commission , James F. Mack, will visit Haiti next week to meet with top government officials to discuss ongoing endeavors to combat illegal drugs in that country.

The Executive Secretary of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Commission (Known by its Spanish acronym, CICAD), will arrive in Port-au-Prince on Sunday and lead a team of OAS experts on the mission which will include talks with Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis and Foreign Minister Jean Raynald Clerisme, among others.

The main objectives of the three-day trip will be to review the progress of Haiti’s National Antidrugs Plan and promote its swift approval by that country’s authorities, as well as to discuss and present a training workshop on the Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism (MEM), a hemisphere-wide assessment process carried out by CICAD.

Once approved, the National Antidrugs Plan will establish the needed policies to confront the principal aspects of the drug problem, from supply and demand to related problems such as money laundering.

The Multilateral Evaluation Mechanism was created to increase coordination and cooperation among the OAS member states, which recognize a shared responsibility for the drug problem and have a common commitment to confront and overcome this scourge. This evaluation mechanism provides countries with a thorough assessment of how they are doing on all aspects of the drug problem. The MEM helps governments identify their strengths, weaknesses, progress, setbacks and gaps across a wide variety of indicators, and assists them to adjust their policies and actions to respond more effectively to the challenges posed by the international drug problem.

This workshop will be geared towards the institutions that provide data to Haiti’s Antidrug Commission, which will in turn submit this information to CICAD for the evaluation that is carried out by the Governmental Expert Group, the body responsible for drafting the MEM’s reports.

During a regional summit on drugs, security and cooperation held in the Dominican Republic in March, OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza reiterated the organization’s commitment in providing Haiti with the necessary cooperation and technical support to combat the drug problem. Next week’s trip marks the first working visit by James F. Mack to the Caribbean nation since that summit. He will also meet with the Minister of Public Health and Population, Robert Auguste, the Minister of Justice and Public Security, René Magloire, and the Head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, Edmond Mulet.

Reference: E-191/07