Vice President Dr Mohamed Waheed this morning inaugurated a workshop organised and facilitated by United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on proposal development for Non-Government Organisations (NGOs).
Speaking to inaugurate the workshop at UN Building in Male’, Vice President Dr Mohamed Waheed said active participation of civil society organisations was vital for the efforts to combat and prevent drug abuse in the Maldives.
Acknowledging that adequate assistance and support were not given to NGOs working to combat drug abuse, the Vice President said the objective of the current project on drug abuse prevention in the Maldives was helping NGOs to work more effectively in preventing drug abuse.
Vice President Dr Waheed added that the current drug prevention programme was formulated with the intention of providing more assistance to NGOs to increase their financial and technical capacities to strengthen and widen their participation in preventing drug abuse and rehabilitating addicts back into the society.
He said civil society organisations have been an integral part of the government’s anti-drug strategy at both planning and implementation levels of government anti-drug policy.
He also noted that recommendations of the Maldives Future Search Conference held in August 2009 were incorporated in the government’s Strategic Action Plan, which is the official national planning document.
The Maldives Future Search Conference held in August 2009 brought together all stakeholders involved in drug prevention in the Maldives, including NGOs, youth, government and law enforcement authorities, to discuss the future plans to combat drug abuse.
The two-day workshop that began today is a part of UNODC technical cooperation project – “Strengthening the national response to combat drug abuse in the Maldives” – which was signed between UNODC and the government on 19 January 2010. The project is funded by the European Union.
