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United Nations Population Fund |
On November 21st 2000, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) established a new Regional Country Technical Services Team (CST) in Bratislava, Slovak Republic for the purpose of providing technical support in population questions to almost 30 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Dr. Nafis Sadik, the former Executive Director of UNFPA, officially inaugurated the new office, together with high Slovak Government officials. (Please visit CST’s web site http://www.unfpa.cst.sk for further details).
Dr. Rainer F. Rosenbaum, the director of the new team, paid his first visit to the Russian Federation from 20 February to 8 March, in order to familiarize himself with the UNFPA’s current cooperation in Russia, revise some projects and establish working relations with Russian institutions.
In this context, on 2-3 March, Dr. Rosenbaum visited Saint Petersburg, together with Dr. Lyubov Yerofeyeva, the UNFPA National Program Officer. There, the UNFPA is supporting a project for Russian Youth, by promoting their reproductive health and reproductive rights.
In Saint Petersburg, the visitors were received by Nadezhda Koblova, the UNDP Liaison Officer, the UN/UNDP Development Center Manager, who provided a very interesting briefing on UN activities and inter-agency coordination in the region (web site http://195.68.179.50/regions, e-mail: unoffice@peterlink.ru).
The highlight of the trip was a visit to the Center for Reproductive Health of Adolescents "UVENTA" – Chair of Child Gynecology of the Saint Petersburg’s Medical Institute. The head of this institution, Prof. Pavel Krotin, gave a detailed account on the institute’s functions and activities. Dr. Rosenbaum visited various departments of the Center and discussed possibilities for future cooperation between the institution and the UNFPA. The most promising perspectives identified were organization of training courses on reproductive health, as well as consultancies offered by the institute’s staff.
An additional highlight of the visit was an official meeting with Vladimir Churov, a.i. Chairman of the Committee for International Relations of the Administration of Saint Petersburg, in the local government’s palace. Vladimir Churov explained the problems and needs of the region and the respective concerns of his government. Dr. Rosenbaum explained the objectives of his visit to Saint Petersburg, as well as the UNFPA’s mandate and cooperation policies.
The work-related contacts in Saint Petersburg finished with a coordination meeting with Dr. Heike Bocanegra, the Program Director of the international NGO "Doctors of the World", which supports a project with street children in the city. And finally the mission came to a spectacular close with an excellent evening concert by the Saint Petersburg’s Symphony Orchestra and a guided tour through the Hermitage Museum, offered by Steward Gibbson, the local UNESCO official.
The visit can be considered very successful. Interesting possibilities for future coordination and cooperation between the UNFPA and various institutions and projects were identified.
Dr. Rosenbaum immensely enjoyed the city’s beauty and the kindness of its people and is very grateful to all the friendly colleagues who made this visit possible. He is definitely not the only visitor to Saint Petersburg to be greatly impressed by the beauty of this famous city but the local residents most certainly found a new friend in him.
The UNFPA Moscow office,
tel:. (095) 787-21-13, 787-21-38,
fax: (095) 787-21-37
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On March 27, 2001 the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Development and the UNFPA initiated a new project "Strengthening National Capacity for Population Policy Development and Advocacy".
The meeting was opened by Deputy Minister Galina Karelova who welcomed the new project which will involve a comprehensive support programme ranging from organizing regional demographic conferences to training seminars for NGOs and media, research on various demographic processes, support of the National Census and publishing demographic journals and magazines. The project support is extremely timely in light of the new proposals for demographic policy which are still to be approved by the President, as well as the critical demographic situation in the country.
Galina Karelova introduced the new UNFPA Representative Mr. Frederick Lyons to the audience. Other participants included representatives of other federal ministries, academia and the media. They noted the unprecedented occasion for cooperation between state and demographic research institutions and expressed the hope that the project would achieve significant results.
Project Manager
Tatyana Prokhortseva,
tel.: (095) 220-09-67
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ODCCP United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention |
On April 5, 2001, the Regional Office for Russia and Belarus
of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime 
Prevention
(ODCCP) presented the final report of a study on Illegal Drug Trade in the Russian
Federation to the Russian and foreign press and public.
The study was carried out by the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law (MPI).
"As you might know there is no unified database in Russia that contains all sorts of information on drug abuse, treatment, control and trafficking. Under these circumstances, we found it necessary to carry out a study that could present a comprehensive picture of the evolution of illegal drug consumption and trade in Russia"– says the ODCCP Representative in Moscow Mr. Bruno Dato in his introductory words during a press conference held at the RIA-Novosti press center.
The Max Plank Institute research team carried out 90 in-depth interviews with law enforcement officials, drug-treatment providers, members of relevant NGOs, and journalists in different parts of Russia and 30 in-depth interviews with drug users in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Field research work was conducted in Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov-on-Don, Balakovo, the Republic of North Ossetia-Alanja, Krasnoyarsk, Khabarovosk, and Vladivostok. Additionally, the researchers analyzed 50 judicial sentences, as well as all the relevant statistics, literature, and articles published on the topic in the Russian press. Their efforts resulted in the final report written by Dr. Letizia Paoli, the MPI project co-ordinator.
According to Dr. Paoli, between 1990 and 1999 the amount of drugs seized by the Russian Ministry of the Interior grew 3.5 times, reaching almost 60,000 kilograms in 1999. Since 1990 the number of registered drug users increased by almost 400 percent and in 2000 450,000 drug users were registered in state drug-treatment centres. According to most experts, however, the true number of drug users is five to seven times that figure. The Russian Ministry of the Interior estimates that 2.5-3 million people regularly or occasionally use illegal drugs in the Russian Federation, representing 2.1 percent of the whole population.
In
absolute values, this figure is not staggering. In the United States, in 1999,
14.8 million Americans (5.4 percent of the population) reported using an illicit
drug at least once during the 30 days prior to the interview. What is really
staggering in contemporary Russia is the explosion of intravenous drug use and,
specifically, of heroin consumption. Today heroin attracts not only intravenous
drug addicts, but also teenagers of all social backgrounds. Six percent of 15-16
year-olds interviewed in Moscow in 1999 admitted to having used heroin at least
once in their lives. In none of the 21 other countries involved in the survey
did the lifetime prevalence rate exceed two percent.
The expansion of the Russian drug consumption and trade during the 1990s brought about the emergence of a nationwide drug distribution system, which brings illicit drugs from producers to consumers, as well as the consolidation of the professional role of the drug dealer. Many observers hypothesise the involvement of a powerful mafia to explain the sudden expansion of illegal drug consumption and trade in Russia. Nonetheless, neither the fieldwork nor an analysis of criminal cases provide any backing for such a hypothesis. The phenomenal growth of drug use can more likely be attributed to the ‘invisible hand’ of the market. The local drug markets in Russian cities are today largely supplied by a myriad of dealers who tend to operate alone or in small groups and often consume illegal drug themselves.
The large criminal organisations that are presented as the dreadful ‘Russian mafia’ by the domestic and foreign press, are apparently not interested in the drug business at the moment. As a law enforcement officer put it, "they have such great opportunities to make money in the so-called legal economy, that it makes no sense for them to deal in drugs".
To study the report please contact Moscow UNODCCP Office
tel.: (095) 787-21-21,
fax: (095) 787-21-29,
or at web site:
