Good progress in NATO-Russia counter-narcotics training initiative

Additional funding has been secured, further courses are planned in Russia, and more mobile training teams will travel to the region to conduct additional training. To date, 120 officers from the region have been trained under the initiative -- about 350 officers in total are expected to be trained by the end of the pilot phase.

Tackling the trafficking in narcotics from Afghanistan, which is estimated to produce 90 per cent of the world's output of opium, is a major challenge for the international community: Afghan narcotics industry and trade pose serious security threats though their linkage to organised crime and the financing of terrorism. In addition, use of narcotics and psychotropic substances poses tremendous social and health problems which transcend national boundaries and undermine human society at a global scale.

NRC Foreign Ministers agreed to launch the Pilot Project for Counter-Narcotics Training of Afghan and Central Asian Personnel in December 2005. Its aim is to contribute to other international efforts aimed at fostering security in and around Afghanistan by helping address the threats posed by the trafficking in narcotics. The initiative seeks to build local capacity and to promote regional networking and cooperation by sharing the combined expertise of NRC member states with mid-level officers from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) acts as the Pilot Project’s executive agent.

An Executive Steering Committee, which consists of representatives of the donor nations participating in the Pilot Project, meets on a regular basis, to assess progress and review on-going preparations for the training courses envisioned in 2007.  The Committee also meets in a reinforced format, with representatives of the UNODC, as well as with high-level representatives of the beneficiary countries, to ensure that their specific training needs are adequately addressed by the NRC training envisioned in the Pilot Project.  The first meeting of this kind was held in November 2006 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

Thanks to important new contributions from Canada, Greece,  Luxembourg, and the United States, the overall budget objective of US$927,400 has now been reached and the Pilot Project is fully funded. Last year, significant financial donations were made by the United States, the Netherlands and Norway.

A number of NRC countries are supporting the project through in-kind contributions.  Russia and Turkey hosted five training courses for officers from Afghanistan and Central Asian countries in 2006. This year, Russia will host additional four courses at its Domodedovo Centre. The first mobile training course was conducted in Dushanbe, Tajikistan in December 2006 with the support of five instructors from the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, two from the Russian Ministry of the Interior and one from the Greek Ministry of Public Order. The UK provided the venue and other aspects relevant to the organization of the mobile training. In 2007, five additional mobile training courses are due to take place in the Kyrgyz Republic, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.

The two-to-three week training courses focus on the theory and practice of key counter-narcotics strategies and techniques such as interdiction, search and seizure, interviewing, surveillance and intelligence. To maximise the impact of the initiative, course participants are expected to pass along the skills acquired to their peers and personnel under their command.  The NRC and the UNODC monitor jointly with the beneficiary countries' authorities the process of professional reintegration of the trained officers into their home agencies upon completion of their NRC training.