The 38th Arab Conference of Heads of Drug Control Agencies and the 2nd meeting between anti-drug agencies and representatives of health ministries of Arab countries concluded on Friday at the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the Council of Arab Interior Ministers in Tunis.
The events were held in cooperation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Representatives of ministries of interior of Arab countries, the League of Arab States, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the EU Action Against Drugs and Organised Crime (EU-ACT), and Naif Arab University for Security Sciences (NAUSS) attended the meeting.
Several recommendations were issued at the end of the conference and meeting, aimed at strengthening Arab security cooperation and coordination in confronting the scourge of drugs and psychotropic substances.
Participants in the conference commended the project entailing enhancing the capacity of the Arab Interior Ministers’ Council, and of the member states to combat the global drug problem, especially synthetic drugs.
They recommended that the General Secretariat and NAUSS cooperate with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to work on providing the funding needed to implement the activities and programs included in the project.
They also suggested that the General Secretariat cooperate with the INTERPOL, within the framework of the cooperation agreement concluded between the two parties, as well as to cooperate with the European Union project to combat drugs and organized crime to achieve common goals.
The conference called on member states to come up with their national plans and strategies to be able to anticipate future developments in drug smuggling, routes and patterns of drug use globally, to unify their positions on issues related to drugs and psychotropic substances raised in international meetings, and to take advantage of the scientific and training activities, academic programs, research and security studies carried out by the Regional Expertise Center for Combating Drugs and Crime (REC-CDC), which NAUSS established in cooperation with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime to bolster the capabilities of Arab security services and help them make use of Arab expertise.