The Harm Reduction Consortium

 

The Harm Reduction Consortium is a global consortium of networks aiming to challenge the global “war on drugs”, scale up access to harm reduction services, and advocate for increased resources for harm reduction.

Grantee type: Global Consortium

Grant: $1,658,700

Grant period: 2016-2018

Lead organization: International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)

Partner organizations: Harm Reduction International (HRI) Youth RISE Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association (MENAHRA) Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (EHRN) European Network of People who Use Drugs (EuroNPUD) Eurasian Network of People who Use Drugs (ENPUD)

 

The Consortium is comprised of seven networks: the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC), Harm Reduction International (HRI), Youth RISE, the Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association (MENAHRA), the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA), the Eurasian Network of People who Use Drugs (ENPUD), and the European Network of People who Use Drugs (EuroNPUD).

• People who use drugs are at higher risk of HIV and other health issues (such as HCV or overdose) in large part because of social exclusion, neglect and inaccessibility of health services and harm reduction services.
• People who use drugs face systematic human rights violations throughout the world, including stigma and discrimination, criminalization and mass incarceration, a lack of protection by police, and violence and abuse from police and others. This creates barriers to access to health services.
• In all regions of the world, people who inject drugs are disproportionately affected by HIV, and are 28 times more likely to be living with HIV than the general population. People who inject drugs account for more than one third of new HIV infections in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA), in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, and significant parts of HIV epidemics in West and East Africa and all other parts of the world.
• Advocates have influenced positive changes in a number of countries around the world. However, harm reduction advocacy and the advancement of more humane drug policies are being made increasingly difficult by the rise of nationalist conservative politics in countries such as Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, and Philippines.
• People who use drugs have important direct experience of HIV-related health needs and barriers to health services. Organizing and advocacy by people who use drugs and their allies are central to efforts to improve human rights environments, improve HIV service accessibility, and improve efficiency and effectiveness of national and international funding for health and human rights.

 

RCF funding 2016-2018

The Harm Reduction Consortium received US$ 1.7 million in funding from the Robert Carr Fund during 2016-2018, continuing steady RCF investment in harm reduction networks since 2013.  This funding was allocated to both core and activity costs across all regions of the world to help build network capacity and to support globally aligned action. In 2019, the Robert Carr Fund allocated over US$ 2.7 million in renewed funding to the Harm Reduction Consortium to sustain and build this important work.

 

Geographic coverage

The Harm Reduction Consortium is a global consortium, convening and supporting organizations and individuals in all regions of the world. Key countries for organizing and capacity-building included Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Lithuania, and Moldova in the EECA region, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan and Thailand in Asia, Mexico and Colombia in Latin America, and Ghana, Kenya and South Africa in Africa.

 

Population coverage

The Harm Reduction Consortium serves and represents people who use drugs and other harm reduction and drug policy advocates.

 

Activities 2016-2018

With RCF funding in 2016-2018, advocates strengthened their national, regional and global organizing, advocated for human rights and legal protections, and developed global and regional guidance documents and campaigns. For example:

• All Consortium partners continued to convene their network members from multiple countries for shared work, sustained international governance structures, and built management and programmatic capacity.
  At a global and regional level, the Harm Reduction Consortium led several campaigns, including IDPC’s “Support Don’t Punish” campaign (calling for the decriminalisation of drug use and greater harm reduction provision), HRI’s “10 by 20” campaign (calling for governments to redirect just 10 percent of the existing funding for drug law enforcement to harm reduction), and the EHRA “Criminalization Costs” campaign (calculating and comparing national spending on harm reduction versus arrests, punishment and incarceration).
• At a country level, a series of small grant programmes from EHRA, EuroNPUD, IDPC, MENAHRA, and Youth RISE supported policy research, consultations with law enforcement and government officials, and advocacy for harm reduction.
• As an example, small grants from Youth RISE supported cross-country comparative research in Kenya and Ghana about the lived realities, service gaps and barriers for young women who use drugs. These research findings are now being used to inform UNODC programs in Kenya.

 

Results 2016-2018

The results from the work of the Harm Reduction Consortium partners include:

• Network strength and influence: As examples of RCF funding impact for the global and regional networks, the Eurasian Harm Reduction Association (EHRA) was formed and supported in 2017 after a serious governance challenge and is now functioning as a strong and stable network, the European Network of People who Use Drugs (EuroNPUD) has new leadership and a stronger governing board, and Youth Rise has grown substantially with a new governing board, new leadership, multiple funders and new partnerships with three other youth networks: Paradigma, Youth LEAD and Y-PEER.
• Human rights: The work of the Harm Reduction Consortium has established important groundwork for advances in drug policy and harm reduction.  For example, although there has been regression in major countries such as Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, and Philippines, decriminalisation of drug use is being discussed in Ghana, Georgia, Myanmar and South Africa among others, and new drug strategies incorporating harm reduction are being rolled out in Myanmar, Thailand and across East Africa. Advocates are also actively engaging with policy-makers and law enforcement officials in dozens of countries.
• Access to services: HRI have conducted groundbreaking global research on the provision of, and funding for, harm reduction. This has enabled advocates to bring about funding for new harm reduction programs in countries such as Colombia and Burkina Faso, and advocates in every region of the world are communicating about their health needs and barriers to health services.