Today, the EMCDDA and the Pompidou Group of the Council of Europe agreed on new areas of cooperation in the framework of their Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), signed in 2010. The new pledge, an appendix updating the 2010 MoU, stipulates specific areas of collaboration based on the organisations’ work programmes and areas of interest.
The agreement was endorsed during the 18th Ministerial Conference of the Pompidou Group, taking place on 13-14 December in Lisbon under the theme ‘Human rights at the heart of drug and addiction policies’. The signatories of the agreement were Executive Secretary of the Pompidou Group Denis Huber and EMCDDA Director Alexis Goosdeel.
The EMCDDA participates in the Pompidou Group’s annual conference of drug control networks and cooperates in its Mediterranean Network on drugs and addictions (MedNET), in areas such as building national drug observatories. The new agreement will see the organisations work together in the areas of training and capacity-building and interventions and policy. Addressing the gender dimension of drug policies, drug treatment in prisons and harm reduction interventions were other areas cited in today’s agreement.
The EMCDDA and the Pompidou Group have worked closely together for over 20 years, with a first MoU signed in 1999. The Pompidou Group is a permanent observer on the EMCDDA Management Board, while the EMCDDA participates at the meetings of the Pompidou Group’s Permanent Correspondents. The two organisations collaborated last month in the organisation of a Symposium on gender and drugs held in the margins of Lisbon Addictions 2022.
Under the MoU, cooperation between the two bodies is decided on the basis of their respective work programmes with a list of activities drawn up at the start of each year. Progress on joint activities is documented in an annual report. The MoU allows for a regular exchange of information and technical expertise between the two bodies, encouraging the creation of synergies to avoid any duplication of effort. In the area of data collection and analysis, the MoU advocates the promotion, by both parties, of standards and methodologies, as well as the use of measurement methods, tools and instruments such as those developed and documented by the EMCDDA and its Reitox network.
