The 20th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa is taking place in Kigali, Rwanda at Kigali Convention Centre.

The Community Village is an integral and vibrant element of the ICASA programme. Located on the parking esplanade (see venue map) the Community Village is open to both registered conference participants and the general public.

The village will host community talks: conferences/debates/workshop, giving conference participants the opportunity to interact with, political, scientists, community leaders NGO activities throughout the conference on the main stage. Another activity of the community village is the NGO exhibition space. Delegates and visitors are encouraged and invited to visit the Village exhibition areas and networking zones.

The Official Opening Ceremony of the Community Village will commence at 16:00 on Monday, 2nd December, 2019 at the Kigali Convention Centre. Please see the Community Village programme in your conference bag for the full schedule of sessions, performances and activities.

Side event: Harm reduction programmes in Africa: Policies & progress

Issues discussed: Global state of Harm Reduction with focus on Africa, EAC Policy in Harm Reduction, Community Led Harm Reduction Interventions, West Africa Perspectives on Harm Reduction, What Next for Africa in terms of Harm Reduction

Pre-conference: 2nd Accountability Pre-Conference | "Holding Leaders Accountable"

: Cheick sidy Modibo Kane, Radisson Convention Centre

Accountability International envision the 2nd Accountability Pre-Conference at #ICASA2019 as the paramount arena in which to promote accountability, provide information, experiences, and training on accountability, and for partners to come together to discuss accountability in the response to HIV, SRHR, health more broadly, and universal human rights. Follow the conversation #HoldingLeadersAccountable #Account4All

Partnership to Inspire, Transform and Connect the HIV response (PITCH) ICASA Roadmap

With sessions focusing on youth, harm reduction, people who use drugs and advocacy by key populations.

Symposium: La réduction des risques - Un levier pour mettre fin au VIH/Sida en Afrique

20th International Conference on AIDS and STIs in Africa - ICASA

The WAD London Vigil programme will take place as below:

1) A procession from the front gate to the non religious chapel, weather permitting. Perhaps people can carry pictures of their loved ones who have died should they wish?

2) Song, poetry and open mic session in the chapel for anyone to contribute speaking about stigma and how community helps as well as how fighting stigma starts with buildings ones own self esteem.

AIDSMemoryUK

BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN RESEARCH, HARM REDUCTION, TREATMENT AND PEOPLE LIVING WITH HEPATITIS C

Hepatitis C is an easy disease to treat. Elimination is possible with the necessary political will. Harm reduction and community services play a crucial role in this setting.

The 3rd Hepatitis Community Summit will discuss these issues and bring together researchers, health and community workers, medical staff and HCV patients and advocates.

The meeting is organised by Correlation – European Harm Reduction Network in cooperation with the European Union funded Eurosider project, which is coordinated by the French research institute INSERM. The main objective of the Eurosider Project is to contribute to a better Hepatitis C policy and practice by developing the transferability of an effective community-based intervention to people who inject drugs in different political contexts with the aim to reduce the risk of HIV-HCV transmission.

Hep-C Community Summit 

Based on collaborative research between a filmmaker, an activist, project participants, and researcher Dr Giulia Zampini, People and Dancefloors is a wider engagement project that aims to provide a platform to voice drug users’ experiences and spark debate about drug policy.

People and dancefloors: Narratives of drug-taking

The Executive Secretariat of the Inter-American Drug Abuse Commission (CICAD) presents its complements to the Permanent Missions and Permanent Observer Missions to the Organization of American States and is pleased to inform that the sixty-sixth regular session of CICAD will be held in Miami, Florida, November 19-21, 2019.

The draft agenda for the meeting, as well as all other documentation (draft schedule of activities, information bulletin with registration form, reports and presentations) will be posted on CICAD's Web page in due course.

66th Regular Session of CICAD

The 3rd European Chemsex Forum will be a 2 ½ day, multi-disciplinary event, in Paris, 14-16 November 2019

Activities include an evening opening with key note speeches on Thursday, the Data and Evidence Day on Friday, and the Community Mobilisation Day on Saturday

The draft programme, based on latest research and community activities, will be announced in late July

Up to 250 participants will participate, coming from across WHO Europe and across the spectrum of people and professions impacted by ChemSex, including people engaged or formerly engaged in chemsex; public health, sexual health, HIV and hepatitis service users, health workers, clinicians, researchers and campaigners; drug and counselling services; policy makers and commissioners; community leaders, volunteers, and members of the community

We encourage participation by people who engage in chemsex including gay men, MSM, trans and non-binary people. We encourage participation by people from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus regions. We encourage participation by people from locations where chemsex use has been identified but there is not yet adequate chemsex response

3rd European Chemsex Forum

The Permanent Mission of Luxembourg to the United Nations, the Permanent Mission of Mexico to the United Nations and the civil society organizations (CSOs) listed above, invite you to an interactive panel discussion exploring the important role played by CSOs in supporting effective data collection, research, and analysis with respect to drugs and drug-related matters. The panel will also discuss building bridges between CSOs and the UN, in particular through the newly-formed UN System Coordination Task Team, in order to better support these efforts.

Luciana Pol, Centre for Legal and Social Studies (Argentina)

Daniel Werb, Centre for Drug Policy Evaluation (Canada)

Steph Sherer, International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute (Czech Republic) Martin Jelsma, Transnational Institute (Netherlands)

Chair: Heather Haase, New York NGO Committee on Drugs (USA)

Opening remarks by H.E. Mr. Juan Ramón de la Fuente Ramírez, Permanent Representative of Mexico to the United Nations.

RSVP essential: NewYorkNGOC@gmail.com (by midnight, Sunday 10th Nov)

The Role of Civil Society in Supporting UN System-wide coordination: research, data collection, and analysis in drug policy

The Paris Peace Forum continues to demonstrate that in a deteriorated international environment it is still possible to advance governance solutions, scale-up projects and launch new initiatives in peace & security, development, environment, new technologies, inclusive economy, or culture & education.

For its second edition, the Call for Projects of the Paris Peace Forum has received more than 700 project submissions from 115 countries and led by a wide panel of actors of global governance, such as states, international organizations, NGOs, companies, foundations, philanthropic organizations, development agencies, religious groups, trade unions, think tanks and universities.
The Selection Committee evaluated all submissions and made its choice based on a geographical and gender balanced representation.

Discover the projects that will be showcased at the next edition of the Forum on 11-13 November 2019 at la Grande Halle de La Villlette, in Paris.

IDPC and Support. Don't Punish at the Paris Peace Forum

The Support. Don't Punish campaign will be one of the 100 projects selected to be showcased at the Forum.

The IDPC Secretariat and Support. Don't Punish colleagues will share the experience of campaigners worldwide in advocating for drug policies based on health, human rights and development, and promoting social justice, gender equality, good governance, accountability and inclusiveness

If you are attending the Forum, check out the following activities in which the campaign and fellow drug policy reformers are involved:

Kicking the habit: Rethinking the war on drugs


Panel with Ann Fordham (International Drug Policy Consortium/Support. Don’t Punish), Camila Ruiz Segovia (Catalyst) and Khalid Tinasti (Global Commission on Drug Policy)

Rehab: shaping a more effective response to drug trafficking worldwide

Wednesday, 13 Nov. | 11:30-12:30 | Agora 1


Panel with Gunilla Carlsson (UNAIDS), Martha Delgado (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mexico), Ruth Dreifuss (Global Commission on Drug Policy), Svante Myric (City of Ithaca, US), Mhammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou (Graduate Institute, Geneva), Alexander Soros (OSF).

Support. Don’t Punish: People power to end the “war on drugs”


Project presentation by Juan Fernandez Ochoa (IDPC, Support. Don’t Punish)

Support. Don’t Punish: Local Actions, Global Voice

Throughout the Forum / Space for Solutions (Development)


Come visit our campaign stand and learn more about what you can do to end the “war on drugs”!

We will be showcasing testimonies from campaigners from all over the world. So, please don’t hesitate to send us your thoughts, below, on why the campaign has been an important resource for capacity building and mobilisation. We will share them in the campaign’s stand at the Forum.

Paris Peace Forum 2019

Hobart has changed substantially in the past decade, it is hardly recognisable both in cityscape and people. Much of this has come from surprising developments driven by locals - it just goes to show how much strategic investment can drive change at all levels. How could a different approach to investment in the alcohol and other drugs sector shape change in our field? Regulatory changes, shifting funding patterns from siloed provision to multi-disciplinary consortiums, innovations in treatment and research, could see our field in a very different place in just a few years. Advances, connections, and learning from this conference could have a far reaching impact on the lives of people engaging with substances into the future.

APSAD Hobart 2019 conference

The “war on drugs” is, in reality, a war on people that targets drug users, women, minorities, growers and other people on the margins of society.

Drug policies that rely on law enforcement have led to growing incarceration rates worldwide. We cannot fully address the impact of incarceration without considering some of its less visible victims: the families and, in particular, the children of men and women in prison.

Published and presented on the year of the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the regional report 

) sits at a rarely-examined crossroads between incarceration, drug policy and children’s rights. The report analyses the impact of parental incarceration and presents a series of recommendations primarily based on 70 interviews carried out with children who have relatives in prison for non-violent drug offenses in Latin America and the Caribbean.

It examines exposure to violence, feelings of loss, stigma, increasing poverty levels and the difficulty of maintaining a relationship with an incarcerated parent.

The regional report is a compilation of findings from eight national studies conducted in Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Uruguay and Panama.

The presentation will include experts and personally impacted individuals from Latin America and the Caribbean who were part of the production process of the report.

Presentation of the report "Childhood that matters"

The International Drug Policy Reform Conference is a biennial event that brings together people from around the world who believe that the war on drugs must end. More than 1,500 attendees representing over 80 countries joined us in Atlanta, GA in 2017 and we are primed for an even larger attendance when we bring the conference to St. Louis, MO in 2019!

Reform attendees have the opportunity to spend three days interacting with people committed to finding alternatives to the war on drugs while participating in sessions given by leading experts from around the world. Don’t miss the opportunity to be a part of this event.

The National Scholarships application will open on June 3, 2019. Please email scholarships@drugpolicy.org if you have any questions before then.

SSDP students do not need to submit an application to DPA’s National Scholarships program. Instead email outreach@ssdp.org expressing your interest in this scholarship and your staff member will be in touch about making CAT point arrangements.

The International Scholarships application is now open! If you are based outside of the U.S. and need financial assistance to attend the Reform Conference, consider applying here. Submission deadline is June 17th!

International Drug Policy Reform Conference 2019

The war on drugs in Brazil has been a long-time issue, which consequences are severe for the population in the favelas and for policemen. As reported by the National Justice Council (CNJ), one in four prisoners were convicted of drug theft or trafficking and, besides imprisonment, the policy of drug repression also generates deaths. Each day, 154 people die, on average, victims of homicide in Brazil, according to the Brazilian Violence Map. Bolsonaro promises to take action against drugs more severely and give a “license to kill” for the policeman in Favelas. Therefore the expectation is for the situation to get worse under his government. The Reconvexo Collective invites you to an evening of movie exhibitions and a roundtable to discuss the consequences of the war on drugs in Brazil for the lives of the black population, for human rights and for democracy.

Past Events