"We truly believe we can make a change," Marco Teixeira tells MTV

01 April 2019 - Last week, the head of UNODC's Global Programme for the Implementation of the Doha Declaration, Marco Teixeira, was interviewed by MTV (one of the most prominent regional channels in Lebanon and the Arab world), on its renowned MTV Alive show. He spoke about the Global Programme's mission to promote a culture of lawfulness, through the various activities and resources of its four components. Below are some excerpts from the interview (edited for clarity).

On the common goal of UNODC and its partners:

"Crime prevention is a very complex theme in itself. We try to work with Member States, to empower national strategies in what relates to crime prevention, especially the educational strategies. We have different types of partners inside the UN, including UNESCO, but also civil society partners and private sector partners like Google and Facebook, to promote this culture of lawfulness. One of the things you mentioned is Education for Justice; our role, and our objective, is to create new educational tools whose principal concept - ethical behaviour - can be taught at different levels of education."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EZOF6hUNYI

On the purpose of outreach and the perception of our respective roles:

"The fact that I'm here, and that I've been invited, is part of our awareness raising efforts. Of course, to change the behaviour and the culture, and to have a more peaceful society, media and social media have a key role to play. And that's why I'm here, because we can only change hearts and minds if we change the way we perceive our role as individual citizens - we can contribute to a better society."

On the Programme's comprehensive educational resources:

"From one angle, we work with teachers to provide new resources, but we also work directly with students because we have interesting games and apps; the children can learn how to break the silence when they are victims of violence, and they can also understand what ethical behaviour is when they face daily dilemmas. We try to translate complex concepts into tangible reality decisions of the children. We also work with academics; we have nine thematic university modules, based on the expertise of more than 400 worldwide teachers."

On the lawfulness challenge around the globe:

"I think there is no region worldwide that is immune to the need to have new or extra educational resources, to uphold the culture of lawful citizenship."

On concrete results:

"The best way to validate our work is the hundreds of human stories that we have, that we are changing the lives of those persons. For instance, in the component of Youth Crime Prevention through Sports, we have children that were affiliated with gangs and who now have a totally different change of behaviour."

On our shared basic goals:

"There are some common factors and that's where we want to center our efforts, to allow us to be adaptable to local and regional contexts. Of course, there are differences, and we should not neglect the social differences between the different continents of the world, but they are all aiming for the same thing. All of us want to live in a peaceful society, where our citizens and our next-door neighbours behave as we expect them to behave, to protect what are socially acceptable values and standards."

On being a comprehensive programme:

"Our programme is an integrated and holistic programme, with a very strong component on media outreach and communication, and a very strong element on educational tools (lessons plans, online gaming), Sports, Prison Rehabilitation is another part of the program, and finally Judicial Integrity. I think this pool of elements can contribute to a better society. Our effort is to move and be innovative in what we do. It's not every day that the UN sponsors programs and gaming that teach values and principles of ethical behaviour: we have done this. We had never worked before on crime prevention through sport before: we have now done that. And this is what is stimulating us: we truly believe we can make a change."