Drug abuse is a growing concern in Bangladesh. An effort to combine Public Private Partnership in trying to address and find out a solution to drug abuse in Bangladesh.

1. PUBLIC-PRIVATE
PARTNERSHIP: SOLUTION
TO DRUG PROBLEM?
Anjalina Diana Podder
Program Officer, Caritas Bangladesh
Date: 12.09.2015

2. ECONOMIC CHANGE IN BANGLADESH
 Bangladesh is a developing country with recent
achievements in its reserve of Foreign Currency,
which lead the country to get the recognition of
Lower Middle Income Country by World Bank very
recently. Indeed it is a great achievement along
with the factor, that the Government and Private
sectors in Bangladesh worked together to reduce
the rate of poverty and extreme poverty from 41
percent in 1990s to 26 percent in 2013. But still
the rate of extreme poverty is high. But still there
is lack of working opportunities against the job
market in Bangladesh.

3. EMERGING SOCIAL PROBLEM: DRUG ABUSE
As the country is growing, there emerges a
social problem. The problem of drug addiction
among the young generation. Reasons such as
frustration, curiosity, unemployment, decreasing
family and social bonding in the urban areas (due
to changes in lifestyle) etc. lead the young
generation to drugs. Easy availability, drug
trafficking, lack of manpower of Police
Administration and lack of monitoring from the
Department of Narcotics Control are the reasons
of severe spread of drugs across Bangladesh.

4. PROBLEM OF DRUG ABUSE
The target market of drugs and customers are
mainly the young generation from all tiers of the
society. The poor urban community is victimized
by the trades and consequences of drug abuse.
Drug addiction is increasing among the adolescent
boys and girls. Even children from poor families
from the age of eight are getting addicted to
gum. This is a matter of serious concern for
Bangladesh and there is not much organizations
working at community level on Universal
prevention method where mass awareness and
community prevention of drugs is the main focus
of intervention.

5. ISSUES
Now, what concept can be correlated to address
and solve the problem of drug abuse?
The Public-private partnership concept can be
effective in solving the problem of drug spread at
community level.
The question is how the poor community can be
benefitted from this partnership to address such a
social problem?

6. Let us see how

7. STEP 1
In terms of macro-level perspective, the
government must initiate stronger and stricter
monitoring and operations to stop the drug flow
inside the country.
If resources are needed, Government can
allocate fund from National Budget. If fund is not
available for such interventions, then government
can as the big companies for funding from their
Corporate Social Responsibility source and direct
the money for capacity building and stronger
monitoring by the law enforcing agencies.

8. STEP 2
The community is at the biggest risk of drug
problem. Therefore, the public-private partnership
(PPP) at community and local government level
can be initiated to address drug addiction
problem.
The partnership can be developed between the
community and local government (Union and sub-
district level, which is the grassroots level of
government). The local government can allocate
an amount for setting up of infrastructure and
community can look after the regular prevention
activities.

9. STEP 3
Another important stakeholder is the NGOs
working on development issues. Relationship
among the community, NGOs and
government can be a strong network to fight
against the problem of drugs.

10. When all the stakeholders
from all levels of society
work together, solving a
problem becomes easier.

11. WE NEED TO REMEMBER
 An addict is a person, who is sick, suffers.
 The family of an addict suffers as much.
 The community is at risk because of someone’s
addiction problem.
 The society suffers to bear the burden of drug
problem that is seeping into the lives of potential
young generations.
 The country suffers as the potential and talents
are destroyed by drugs.
At the end, we all suffer.

12. At the end, we all suffer.
But when we stand
together, we are strong,
we can solve problems.

18. TOWARDS A
BRIGHTER FUTURE!