5th Brandenburg Forum on Drugs and Development Policies report

Learn more about our joint work with the Global Partnership on Drug Policies and Development (GPDPD)

The 5th Brandenburg Forum on Drugs and Development Policies took place from 11th to 13th February 2020, at the Schloss Lübbenau in Brandenburg, Germany. The Forum was organised within the framework of the Global Partnership on Drug Policies and Development (GPDPD).1 GPDPD is commissioned by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented under political patronage of the German Federal Government’s Drug Commissioner. The meeting was co-hosted by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of BMZ, the Office of the German Federal Drug Commissioner, the Government of the Netherlands, the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services, the Transnational Institute (TNI), and the International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC).

The Forum brought together 48 participants (25 male and 23 female), including government representatives from Albania, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Finland, Germany, Ghana, Mexico, Myanmar, the Netherlands, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom – alongside representatives from the European Union (EU) and African Union (AU), as well as the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The meeting was also attended by several leading civil society and academic organisations, including representatives of people who use drugs.

In order to promote open dialogue, the discussions were conducted under ‘Chatham House Rule’ whereby the contents can be shared and used, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of any participants may be revealed.