UNODC has established an Informal Interagency Technical Working Group (ITWG) to increase the effectiveness and impact of interagency collaboration on ensuring access and availability of controlled medicines, whilst preventing diversion, non-medical use, and misuse.The Working Group would aim at accelerating the implementation of relevant UNGASS 2016 recommendations and the achievement of SDG health target 3.8. It would constitute a further development in the ongoing UNODC-WHO-UICC collaboration under the joint programme focusing on strengthening international support at all levels for effective strategies and interventions.
To this end, the ITWG finds its value in the merging of specific, yet complementary mandates to enhance national and international efforts to achieve universal access to controlled medicines, whilst mitigating threats. The diverse and complex barriers to achieving this overarching goal, that disproportionately afflict the most vulnerable populations, calls for a broad and comprehensive interagency approach. The intersectional nature of SDG 3.8, touching on gender, education, and the rights of children, amongst other dimensions, elicits a holistic, coordinated, and health-centred response that addresses root causes and consequences.
The Informal Working Group will advocate the indispensability of effective, quality, safe, and affordable controlled medicines prescribed rationally for pain management and various disorders, whilst considering the threats to legitimate use posed by diversion, non-medical use, and misuse. In accordance with the International Drug Conventions and national legislation, the Working Group is embedded in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by ensuring that we are, “leaving no one behind”.
The goal of the Informal Interagency Working Group will be a substantial increase in interagency coordination and collaboration in the development, implementation, quality assurance, and evaluation of policies and programmes aimed at ensuring access and availability to controlled medicines for medical and scientific purposes, whilst preventing diversion, non-medical use, and misuse.
This will be achieved through specific objectives promoting joint and interagency initiatives, including, for example:
