• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Drug Policy and Law
  • Harm Reduction
  • Activism

Drugreporter

News and Films from the Frontline of the War on Drugs

  • News
  • Café
  • Videos
  • About Us
  • EN
    • HU
    • RU

Quality Standards for Civil Society Involvement in Drug Policy

June 9, 2021 | Author: Péter Sárosi

Tweet

In this report, the EU Civil Society Forum on Drugs will provide you with guidelines on how to make the involvement of civil society in drug policy more meaningful.

We hear many criticisms about civil society involvement in drug policy. Civil society organisations complain that the process lacks transparency. It is not inclusive of most affected communities and vulnerable groups. It consists of cherry-picking like-minded organisations. There is no funding for civil society to make its input more sustainable. And so on and so forth. I am sure that many of my readers, who work for civil society organisations, could continue the list of reasons why the process is not meaningful.

Quality Standards for Civil Society Involvement in Drug Policy (download in PDF)

But what does make civil society involvement in decision making meaningful? It is not so easy to find any guidelines on positive, consensual criteria. There are international guidelines, approved by the EU, on minimum quality standards for drug demand-reduction interventions, with practical instructions to service providers and decision makers on what constitutes good quality, and how we can ensure that our interventions are developed in an effective way. However, we have only a few documents that either decision makers or civil society can use when it comes to developing, implementing, monitoring, and evaluating civil society involvement as an exercise.

This is why we, the Civil Society Forum on Drugs, an expert group of the European Commission advising decision makers on drug policy issues, decided to create quality standards for the meaningful involvement of civil society into drug policy decision making. First, we reviewed the existing guidelines, recommendations, and articles written on this subject and published our report last year. And now, based on the findings of our literature review, we are glad to share with you the CSFD’s quality standards themselves.

This report aims to inform both decision makers and civil society actors. Decision makers can find a step-by-step guideline on how they can develop civil society involvement mechanisms, applicable to both international, national, and local level decision making. Civil society organisations and activists can also find recommendations about how to become more effective and trusted partners for decision makers. We developed 9 overarching quality criteria for both sides to be able to assess the quality of all steps taken in the process.

Quality standards are great documents – if they are consensual and are implemented. We would like to ask all decision makers and civil society actors to give us feedback on this document so we can improve it in the future!

The CSFD is planning to monitor civil society involvement in drug policies in Europe. Therefore, we have launched a survey among civil society organisations with an online questionnaire – if you are a member of civil society, please fill it in, your input on the national/local situation is very valuable for us.

Create your own user feedback survey


Peter Saros

Filed Under: Articles Topics: European Drug Policy

Access to this article is free - but to produce articles and videos is not. Drugreporter is a non-profit website that needs your support to provide you with high quality contents.

Become a supporter and make a donation of 5 $ today!

Related articles:

Homage to Catalonia: Cannabis Social Clubs

March 13, 2023 - Péter Sárosi

The Italian Anti-Rave Law Violates Human Rights – Interview with Susanna Ronconi

February 1, 2023 - Péter Sárosi

How Will Czechia Legalise Cannabis?

October 19, 2022 - Péter Sárosi

Related videos:

Support Igor Kuzmenko – a Ukrainian Video Reporter Documenting Harm Reduction during the War!

March 20, 2023 - István Gábor Takács

Fixpunkt Berlin: Supporting People Who Use Drugs in Berlin 

March 8, 2023 - Péter Sárosi

HR23 Film Festival in Melbourne – Call for Submissions!

March 3, 2023 - István Gábor Takács

You can browse our topics here:

Activism COVID-19 Criminalisation Dose of Science Drug Consumption Rooms Drug Policy and Law European Drug Policy Harm Reduction Hepatitis HIV/AIDS Marijuana Policies Medical Marijuana Needle and syringe programs New Psychoactive Substances Opiate Substitution Overdose Prevention Psychedelic Medicines Regulation and Control Russian Drug Policy Sex Work United Nations Drug Policy US Drug Policy

Primary Sidebar

BECOME A SUPPORTER OF DRUGREPORTER! INVEST THE PRICE OF A COFFEE MONTHLY AND MAKE SURE DRUGREPORTER KEEPS RUNNING!

Subscribe to the Newsletter!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Search

Drugreporter Video Database

Hundreds of videos on drug policy, harm reduction and human rights for streaming and download, also on a world map!

DRUGREPORTER NEWS

Monthly drug policy news from around the world

Drugreporter café

In our new online video show, we regularly discuss new developments in the world of drug policy with professionals, activists and decision makers. You can also listen to the Drugreporter Café in Podcast format on Spotify or Apple Podcasts!

COVID-19 Harm Reduction Update

On this info page Drugreporter provides regular updates about resources and news on how harm reduction service providers respond to the COVID-19 Epidemic.

Drugreporter Video Advocacy Network

Browse videos produced by members of our Drugreporter Video Advocacy Network, from all around the world!

DRUG USERS NEWS

Russian language videos on drug policy, harm reduction and human rights.

Our award winning animated documentary movie is based on the original audio recording of Kostya Proletarsky, a drug user and HIV activist who died as a result of mistreatment and torture at a Russian prison. Festival appearances, news and resources are available here!

Footer

Rights Reporter Foundation
Hungary, 1032 Budapest
San Marco Street 70.
Email: rightsreporter@rightsreporter.net

Search

Our other websites:

The Rights Reporter Foundation

The Autocracy Analyst

Room for Change Campaign

Room in the 8th District Campaign

A Day in the Life movie website

Drugreporter