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interview with those interviewees had to be taken into account. The answers are anonymous in this paper due to some of the statements made by the interviewees in sensitive areas that could bring them administrative problems in their institutions. Therefore, indications such as „Interviewee 1”, „Interviewee 2”, and so on have been used. The interviews were divided into parts comprising a basic introduction to interagency
cooperation; knowledge, coherence, performance and
mainstreaming; and a conclusion with recommendations regarding the chosen agency’s cooperation.
II�1�3� UNODC – WHO Interagency Cooperation
Every interviewee stressed the importance of good cooperation.
The organizations benefit from cooperation on account of their systems and similar objectives.
According to Interviewee 1, the cooperation of UNODC-WHO seemed to require an integrated approach to reach desired outcomes since drug issues require both health (WHO) and law enforcement (UNODC) to approach problems together. “The Executive Heads of UNODC and WHO committed fully to implement within their respective mandates and roles
operational recommendations of the outcome document entitled ‘Our joint commitment to effectively addressing and countering the world drug problem’ adopted by the thirtieth special session of United Nations General Assembly.”27 WHO is the directing authority in the UN system on health issues at the international level and is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters.
On the other hand, UNODC is the directive entity for addressing and countering the world drug problem, preventing crime and violence, and strengthening the Member States’s justice systems, and it is the convening agency of UNAIDS for the response to HIV among people who use drugs. Both of these mandates are complementary in nature and practice, as the expert from UNODC stated (Interviewee 1). On the other hand, the cooperation between UNODC and WHO is not necessarily a result of the SDGs framework, according to Interviewees 1, 2, and 4, 7. Despite this, SDGs have become an additional instrument that allows greater cooperation, serves as a means of identifying common ground, and represents an aspect of strategic engagement that is both holistic
27 MOU was signed between UNODC and WHO in 2017.
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and comprehensive, according to Interviewee 2. Interviewee 2 stated that SDGs make projects even more relevant, measurable, and give both organizations another instrument for cooperation to strengthen existing efforts and thereby foster both the information and knowledge management of DEG and overall coherence. According to Interviewee 3, “All UNODC programs are now tagged to SDGs, meaning that all programming has to take into account the different SDG targets and report on them.
UNODC is a custodian to some indicators also related to SDGs 3, 5, 10, 11, 15, and 16. Therefore the work is mainstreaming to contribute to the achievement of these indicators”.
Cooperation within the framework of SDGs is rather difficult to analyse, as it always intertwines with other SDGs and non-SDG-related matters; due to their mandates, all the projects that UNODC and WHO jointly undertake implement a focus on SDGs. For example, according to Interviewee 2, UNODC-WHO joint prevention work on substance/drug use disorder is reflected in SDG 3.5 “Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol.” At the same time, drug prevention
and treatment contribute to the achievement of SDG5 “Achieve Gender Equality and Empower All Women and Girls,” Target 16.1 of SDG 16 “Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere,” Target 16.2 “End abuse, exploitation, trafficking and all forms of violence against and torture of children” and Target 16.4
“By 2030, significantly reduce illicit financial flows, combat all forms of organized crime”. One of the main principles of the UN, according to Interviewee 2, is to do evidence-based programming in order to get the numbers right. UNODC and WHO support networking as well as information and knowledge management (and the overall knowledge and performance of the UN) by conducting joint studies on homicide, which is one of the SDG indicators, namely 16.1
“Significantly reduce all forms of violence and related death rates everywhere.” On SDG 5, for example, according to Interviewee 2, UNODC has developed a comprehensive gender strategy agenda – the strategy for gender equality and the empowerment of women (2018-2021) -which is the first institutional framework on gender equality for the UN Office in Vienna (UNOV) and the UNODC.
The strategy was developed with the recommendation of UN Women,
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which assisted the development of its terms of reference and reviewed it. This gender strategy agenda is a clear example both of knowledge management and of ensuring the participation of other agencies and organizations (even though UN Women is not classified as an epistemic community). The strategy seeks to ensure that gender equality and the empowerment of women are integral parts of all aspects of the work of UNOV/
UNODC in making the world safer from drugs, crime, and terrorism and in ensuring the peaceful uses of outer space. Interviewee 5, in turn, mentioned that UNODC and WHO have had an MoU since 2017 which created a joint programme on the prevention of drug use and drug use disorders; the treatment of drug use disorders; access to controlled drugs for medical purposes; new psychoactive substances; prevention, diagnosis, treatment, care and support for HIV, viral hepatitis and tuberculosis;
prevention of violence and violence-related deaths; and finally, monitoring drug use and its health and social consequences. UNODC and WHO also conduct studies on drug use disorders, aiming at understanding the root causes, as well as on homicide.
The mainstreaming of cooperation between UN institutions
has created a more effective and efficient means of communication to third parties as well. UNODC is now able to get access to ministries of health in order to give advice and provide assistance in scaling up fundamental prevention, treatment, and care assistance throughout the health sector in the Member States.
In contrast, the Health Ministries traditionally do not fall under the scope of UNODC but WHO.
Thanks to the cooperation between UNODC and WHO, today, the Ministries of Health in the Member States have evaluated UNODC’s incentives and suggestions with the same procedure as if they came from WHO and have started to organise their health policies accordingly, especially in the matter of drug matters and sexually transmitted diseases.
“This is significant for carrying out comprehensive programming.
We have reached over 30 countries globally in West Africa, Southeast Asia, Southeast Europe, and Latin America” (Interviewee 2). At the same time, there are challenges and obstacles. The main challenges, as Interviewee 2 mentioned, have been due to the different organisational structures and cultural differences between the two organisations.
Although the mandates are related, the implementation carried out differently. Interviewee 3 said
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that communication is not entirely efficient. The goals of the projects, according to the interviewee, are significant, and, in his opinion, there is no decent communication channel with constant reporting and information exchange. The interviewee mentioned that very often, only one side reports on progress, and which of the sides is more proactive usually depends on the project and funding (donors).
This statement highlights an example of there being room for better information and knowledge management by means of Digital Era Governance (DEG) between UNODC and WHO. According to Interviewee 2, a more structured coordination mechanism would benefit cooperation between both organisations. Similarly, additional joint programming would further increase efficiency and avoid duplications and donor fatigue.
From the interviews, it became clear that the current achievements are not directly a result of the SDGs. However, the SDGs have provided an additional mechanism for cooperation and, as such, have made joint programming more likely. Some of the best practices include joint studies and comprehensive programming, including ministries of health and law enforcement.