Our Work

Strategic Plan 2024-2027

The global consensus on how to respond to drug-related challenges is falling apart irreversibly, creating a breakthrough moment of opportunity for reform. Support for progressive approaches such as harm reduction, decriminalisation, responsible regulation and safer supply is growing in all corners of the world. The IDPC network will continue to be front and centre, seizing on these gains and resisting the backlash from those heavily invested in the status quo.

Working together across sectors, we can secure a historic change of direction towards a better world – one where collective well-being, solidarity, evidence and compassion shape how we respond to the complex realities of drug use, cultivation, production and supply.

Our objectives

IDPC has rapidly become a widely recognised and respected source of expertise and assistance on drug policies, trusted by policy makers, civil society and affected communities, partners, the media, and other audiences. Over the next four years, we will continue our established and successful models of work, while delivering against five priority areas identified by our network as key to seize upon the opportunities for reform. Through this Strategic Plan, and with the support of partners and funders, we will achieve the following by the end of 2027:

  • Increase the number of countries decriminalising drug use and possession – an approach proven to reduce harms and inequalities, while redirecting valuable state resources away from punishment and criminal systems and into life-saving health and social services.
  • Increase the number of countries adopting responsible legal regulation for cannabis and other controlled substances – thereby placing irresistible pressure on the international drug control system to change.
  • Change the international drug control system so that drug policy reform becomes a UN-wide priority across agencies and de-linked from the crime agenda – including through our advocacy across various decision-making bodies and the the creation of a dedicated UN mechanism to report on the human rights impacts of the “war on drugs”.
  • Bring new, sustainable funding to the drug policy reform movement by working with existing, new and potential donors and partners to demonstrate the cross-cutting impact we can collectively achieve.
  • Increase public support for drug policy reform through the media – using both traditional and social media as powerful catalysts for change at the global, regional and national levels, and to spread the word of the harms caused by current drug policies and the urgent need for reform.

What we need

To achieve the full scale of change possible in the next four years, IDPC needs to grow and strengthen, as well as enhance the capacities of our members. Failure to do so would mean missing a pivotal window for reform, and the risk of the global response back-sliding into securitisation and repression.

We need USD 11.8 million over four years to successfully deliver this ambitious Strategic Plan. Together we CAN create a more humane and just world and improve the lives of millions.

Strategic pillars

Like its predecessors, this Strategic Plan is built around five pillars of work that have been successfully used to structure the efforts of the IDPC secretariat for many years:

  • Networking and communications
  • Capacity strengthening (such as organisational development support, e-trainings and the Support Don’t Punish campaign)
  • Research, publications and tools for advocacy
  • International advocacy (including across the UN)
  • Regional and national advocacy (when called upon by our members)

Priority areas

Following consultations across the network, the following ‘priority areas’ have been identified for the period 2024-2027. These are specific areas of work where our members and partners believe that IDPC’s focus, engagement, collaboration and contributions will bring added value and impact. For each area, the IDPC secretariat will develop a roadmap for progress towards our goals and aspirations by 2027. Crucially, however, our core work outside of these ‘priority areas’ will continue too – fully acknowledging the complex and multifaceted nature of drug policy reform and the need to ground all of our efforts in social justice, gender equality, human rights, anti-racism and decolonisation.

  • Promoting the best models of decriminalisation
  • Promoting responsible, ethical and equitable regulation
  • Mobilising the whole of the UN to change the drug control system
  • Bringing new, sustainable funding to the drug policy reform sector
  • Enhancing public support for drug policy reform through the media

Previous strategic plans

We must stop the war on drugs. Instead, let us focus on transformative change, crafting drug policies which ultimately improve the lives of the millions of individuals affected.
Volker Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Statement at the 2023 session of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND).