Strengthening cooperation in drug fighting between Vietnam and UNODC

A conference on drug control and crime prevention was held in Hanoi on January 17 by the Ministry of Public Security in coordination with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

As a key agency in drug control and crime prevention, UNODC national programmes in Vietnam are in line with the UNODC’s medium-term strategy for 2008-2011, a regional programme framework for East Asia and the Pacific for 2009-2012 and a UN Common Action Plan for 2008-2010. Vietnam was chosen as one of the eight countries to implement UNODC’s pilot projects.

These projects were built and developed based on Vietnam’s socio-economic development plan for 2006-2011 and Vietnamese national programmes on drug control, HIV/AIDS, human trafficking, corruption, money laundering and domestic violence.

The conference reviewed the implementation results of these projects and programmes and in turn developed plans for drug control and crime prevention in the new period in line with Vietnam’s socio-economic development plan in 2011-2015 and the UN One Plan for 2012-2016.

Over the past 10 years, Vietnam has considered drug and other crimes as a danger to security, order and social stability along with most of the international community. Vietnam has actively participated in the UN activities for prevention and achieved significant results, such as improving citizens’ awareness of drug abuse and other crimes, as well as building and gradually completing the legal system and issuing many action plans and programmes on drug and crime prevention. The country has eliminated poppy cultivation areas, strengthened drug and crime fighting operations and seized more than 10,000 cases of illegal heroin and dealt with more than 20,000 isolated drug crimes.

Participants at the conference agreed that the results are attributed to the international community, especially UNODC which has helped Vietnam to make plans, improve capacity for Vietnamese drug and crime prevention agencies, and build a national strategy on drug control by 2020, with a vision for 2030 and an international aid programme.