1. 10/21/13 Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) : MEM Prepares New Frameworkfor Evaluating Drug Policy
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Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission
(CICAD )
Next MEM Round gets framework for evaluation
Representatives from 26 member states of the Organization of American States
(OAS) finalized the most significant overhaul of the Multilateral Evaluation
Mechanism (MEM), the OAS's instrument for assessing the efforts of member
states in dealing with the global drug problem, since its inception in 1999.
Ambassador Paul Simons, CICAD Executive Secretary, delivers the opening remarks for the
meeting of the Inter-Government Working Group (IWG), which is updating the Multilateral
Evaluation Mechanism (MEM). He is accompanied by Juan Gabriel Morales of Mexico, who is
deputy IWG chair, and Ms. Angela Crowdy, chief of the CICAD's MEM Unit.
The meeting of the MEM's Inter-governmental Working Group (IWG) sought to
recast the evaluation process within the framework of the Hemispheric Drug

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Strategy, approved by the OAS General Assembly in June 2010, and its Plan of
Action, 2011-2015, adopted a year later. The two documents represent the
hemispheric political consensus on drug control policy.
Mr. Juan Gabriel Morales of Mexico, the deputy IWG Chair coordinating the
week-long session, said, "The objective of this process is to enhance the
Mechanism, guaranteeing its effectiveness and relevance. In this regard, we are
working towards a conceptual agreement on an updated and more dynamic
evaluation process."
The IWG meeting, which took place October 23-26 in Washington, DC,
culminated two years of discussion and collaboration that was mandated by the
Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) in mid-2010 to adapt
the MEM process to the Strategy, and to improve and strengthen the Mechanism
to make it more streamlined and relevant to policy making and evaluation in
each country.
In addition to detailed guidance given by the Commission, there were three
prior in-person meetings, as well as ongoing collaboration through a secure
online platform that allows participants to fine-tune documents.
CICAD Executive Secretary Paul Simons said, "The MEM has been taken as a
model for other collective assessment efforts in the OAS, and our Member
States are continuing their efforts to innovate with this tool for mutual
assistance."
Collaboration among governments

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A pre-IWG meeting in Costa Rica in June selected 27 recommendations from the Action Plan
to narrow down the evaluation focus and prioritize policy guidelines: three in the area of
institutional strengthening, seven in demand reduction, five in supply reduction, eleven in
control measures, and one in international cooperation.
These 27 recommendations form part of a survey that contains additional
questions and criteria related to each recommendation so that each government
can demonstrate how they have moved forward on these policy targets in
concrete, measureable ways. The IWG meeting will also approve a Handbook on
Evaluation Criteria and an evaluation scale, as well as additional supporting
documents.
"The resulting Sixth Round country reports should provide useful feedback to
countries as to where they stand and which actions are pending for complete
fulfillment of the 27 recommendations," said Ms. Angela Crowdy, chief of
CICAD's MEM Unit, which provides technical support to the evaluation process.

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Deputy IWG chair Juan Gabriel Morales and Angela Crowdy, chief of the CICAD's MEM Unit,
consult the wording of a document.
The IWG's final set of MEM documents will be forwarded for final approval to
the full Commission at its fifty-second regular session [1] in San Jose, Costa
Rica, November 28-30.
As a mandate from the Second Summit of the Americas (1998), the Mechanism
is an instrument designed to measure the progress of actions taken by OAS
Member States to deal with drug control. This evaluation is carried out through
the elaboration and publication of national and hemispheric reports. There
were previous five evaluation rounds. The Governmental Expert Group, whose
members are designated by member states to form part of a multidisciplinary
team, prepares the reports. Experts do not participate in the evaluation of their
own country.
updated on 11/30/2012 4:11:52 PM