The Transnational Institute (TNI) and the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ) co-hosted the First Southeast Asian Informal Drug Policy Dialogue, 12-14 February 2009 in Bangkok. The dialogue – similar to TNI efforts in Europe and Latin America – brought together government officials, experts, NGOs and representatives of international agencies, to discuss dilemmas and possible improvements in drug policy making in the region. Participants in the Bangkok meeting were from Burma, Thailand, Laos, Yunnan (China) and Northeast India.
Martin Jelsma, one of the coordinators explains here the objectives and outcomes of the event:
Informal Drug Policy Dialogues
An important method the drugs programme developed in 2004-2008 first in collaboration with the Andreas Papandreou Foundation (Greece) for Europe, and subsequently with the Washington Office in Latin America (WOLA) for Latin America and with GTZ for Southeast Asia is to facilitate informal policy dialogues between policy officials, representatives of international institutions and non-governmental experts.For more information on the dialogues and dialogue reports see: Informal Drug Policy Dialogue, at the TNI website.