MENAHRA is inviting you to its 1st webinar in 2021.

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected implementation of harm reduction programmes. The pandemic has drastically impacted the quality and delivery of harm reduction services, and stakeholders are struggling to ensure sustainable services during this period.

People who inject drugs are more vulnerable to contracting HIV and hepatitis C; they also do not receive enough medical attention in their treatments. Although the MENA region is estimated to have one of the lowest HIV prevalence rates in the world (<0.1%), HIV/AIDS-related deaths remain high (8000 in 2020) and only 38% of people living with HIV have access to antiretroviral therapy (ART). Regarding hepatitus C, it is estimated that the MENA region has the highest rates per capita in the world, with approximately 20% of the total number of people who have contracted the infection residing there. In addition, in 2020, it was estimated that there are more than 200,000 people who inject drugs living with chronic hepatitis C with one third of these localised in Iran.

Funding for harm reduction initiatives remains a major obstacle for countries in the MENA region. They have all reported decreased levels of funding since 2018, with Morocco being the sole exception. The main international donors reported by stakeholders supporting harm reduction are the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (Global Fund), and the Drosos Foundation.


#COVID19 and the impact on #druguse and #harmreduction programming in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region




Professor Marie Claire Van Hout and Ms. Patricia Haddad



COVID-19 and the impact on drug use and harm reduction programming in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region

The Asia Pro Bono Conference is organized by a network consortium from throughout Asia and the world. APBC has become the largest annual gathering of individuals and institutions supporting and engaged in pro bono service, public interest law, and access to justice programs and initiatives in Asia. The Conference has been held in Vientiane, Laos (2012); HCMC, Vietnam (2013); Singapore (2014); Mandalay, Myanmar (2015); Bali, Indonesia (2016); Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (2017); Hong Kong, China (2018), and Kathmandu, Nepal (2019).

The 2020 APBC will be an opportunity to share experiences, advocacies, and ideas not only among Asians but to learn as well from experts, practitioners, and policymakers from other regions of the world.

Join us to celebrate and emphasize pro bono legal work, access to justice and legal empowerment initiatives, as well as discuss ways to further the outreach of pro bono ethos and impact in Asia and around the Globe.

Asia Pro Bono Conference & Access to Justice Exchange

Much of the research which informs policy and decision making systemically excludes communities and key populations such as people who use drugs, people who live on the streets, transgender people, sex workers and men who have sex with men. Narratives which inform research projects too often come from academic backgrounds which are detached from real life issues. Given this, it is more crucial than ever for community-led organisations to engage in research and learn to apply it to our work. Join us for a free webinar discussing the importance of communities engaging in research by presenting the success of a recent community-led, multi-country values and preferences study on Hepatitis C Self-Testing. This event will be in English with Russian translation services available.

Сообщества и ключевые группы часто не могут принять участия в исследованиях, результаты которых отражаются на принимаемых решениях и проводимых политиках. Например, это касается людей, употребляющих наркотики, бездомные, трансгендерные люди, секс-работники, мужчины, имеющие секс с мужчинами. Исследования часто сопровождаются описаниями, имеющими мало общего с реальной жизнью и выполненными с академической точки зрения. В связи с этим общинным организациям сейчас как никогда важно проводить свои исследования и научиться применять полученные результаты в своей работе. Присоединяйтесь к нашему вебинару – он бесплатный, на нём мы обсудим вопросы вовлечения сообществ в проведение исследований и поделимся информацией о недавно завершённом исследовании, где изучались мнения и предпочтения людей, употребляющих наркотики, в отношении самотестирования на гепатит С. Это исследование было успешно проведено в нескольких странах самими общинными организациями. Ссылка для онлайн регистрации: https://zoom.us/.../tJwoduqtpjwoH9TTtuYkSP3YPdmoCnv26di-

Taking the lead: Addressing the critical role of communities in research

With Valentines Day just having passed, this month's African Leaders Training will focus the love and compassion that comes as a part of harm reduction. Our expert panel will discuss how harm reduction can help create a safer society.

 Dr Catherine Mwangi is a public health specialist with special focus on harm reduction. She has over 10 years’ experience implementing and managing harm reduction programs at the national and community level. She is a researcher and mentor to girls/women who use drugs in Kenya through an organization called Women Nest where she offers voluntary services.

 Parliamentary & Policy Research Officer @TB HIV Care PhD. in research on drugs & drug rehabilitation facilities at University of Cape Town

Senior Nurse Manager Addiction Expert @Psychiatric Hospital - Mental Health Authority

SSDP African Leaders Training:  Harm reduction: A panacea for a safer society

 invite you to participate in the webinar that will provide information on drug policy evaluation as an effective instrument to guide, manage and support effective policies and services. The Webinar is supported by the 

European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction

The Webinar will present an insight on how various actors can contribute to a process of monitoring and evaluation of drug policies and can benefit from. It will:

showcase the benefits of drug policy evaluations

provide examples of recent regional drug policy (e.g. Croatia, Cyprus)

provide opportunities of online evaluations

The webinar may serve as a source of inspiration to support all those involved process of building better drug policies. It is especially suitable for regional drug policy makers, regional civil society groups, European and other interested participants.

Drug Policy evaluations: approach and methods

Experiences from online/hybrid evaluation.

Three parallel breakout sessions will follow on What is needed to prepare a national drug policy?, How to monitor progress? and How to learn from and improve policies?

The Webinar will be held via Zoom at the following link https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86598224178 on Wednesday 10 February 2021 starting at 14:00 CET. The Webinar will last for 120 minutes.

As the number of participants is limited, please register by Monday 8 February using the form attached here>>>.

Drug Policy evaluation: Opportunities to support inclusive, effective and evidence-based public policy

The Vienna NGO Committee on Drugs (VNGOC) and the UNODC Civil Society Unit are inviting to a joint webinar, introducing the International Drug Control Conventions and the roles of UNODC, INCB and CND. To ensure a broad engagement the webinar will be held in English with interpretation in Russian and Spanish.

Introduction to the International Drug Control Conventions - Civil society webinar

The EAER project is a partnership of four European organisations which have aimed to use their collective knowledge to create resources that would help people in recovery access employment and to share knowledge and practice with other organisations working in employability projects with people who have a history of problem substance use.

This event will highlight the resources created for the project and presentations will include;


• Examples of good practice in employability and recovery
• An overview of a good practice guide to training, support, and qualifications across Europe.
• EAER online platform which will host the EAER project with a number of interactive features
• SocialMe and digital identity


• To deliver positive and long-lasting through building more employability and employment opportunities for people who use or have used substances
• To deliver positive and long-lasting effects on people participating in the programme through increased knowledge, skills, and motivation to improve services


• Dutch Foundation Innovation in Welfare 2 Work (Netherlands)
• Agência Piaget para o Desenvolvimento (Portugal)
• Comunità "La Tenda" Cooperativa Sociale (Italy)
• Scottish Drugs Forum (UK)

Employability for people in recovery in Europe: EAER Project

The Bylaws of the Global Fund state that the Partnership Forums should serve as a visible platform for debate, advocacy, continued fundraising, and inclusion of new partners for the development of the next Global Fund’s strategic plan. To this end, the 6th Partnership Forums will be central to the development of the post-2022 Global Fund Strategy. Representatives from across the Global Fund partnership will be convened to review input, evidence and guidance received on strategy development, and debate and distil potential emerging areas of future Strategy focus.

In early 2021, three -virtual- 6th Partnership Forums, with participation from individuals representing the regions listed below as well as a limited number of participants from the Global North, are scheduled as follows:

Partnership Forum I, 9-11 February, 2021: Eastern Europe and Central Asia & Latin America and the Caribbean;

Partnership Forum II, 17-19 February, 2021: Africa and MENA I (includes Morocco, Egypt, Djibouti, Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, South Sudan , Algeria, Mauritania, Djibouti, Eritrea);

Partnership Forum III, 3-5 March, 2021: East Asia Pacific, South West Asia and MENA II (includes, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, Palestine).

This call for nominations aims to identify a pool of potential participants from which a selected group will be invited to participate in each Partnership Forum. Due to constraints in the number of people who may attend the 6th Partnership Forums, nominees will be selected based on pre-defined criteria and meeting capacity, to ensure a balanced representation of the broad range of stakeholders that make up the Global Fund partnership.

The Global Fund's 6th Partnership Forums (Virtual)

, Finnish Blue Ribbon Foundation, Finland.



Responding to drugs and homelessness: Innovative approaches in Europe

By Drug Science Student Society, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and The Southampton Psychedelic Research Society

Drug Science Student Society, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and The Southampton Psychedelic Research Society are proud to announce ‘The Student Psychedelic Conference’. This online transatlantic conference will take place over two days on 30th and 31st January.

We have secured a fantastic line up of speakers including Professor David Nutt, Dr. Beatriz Labate, Dr. Peter Hughes, representatives from the Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group, and Dr. Ben Sessa. See the full list of speakers at: https://www.studentpsychedelicconference.co.uk/

Our wonderful panelists will be covering a diverse range of topics from patient experience of psychedelic trials, the impact of globalization of ayahuasca, and what psychedelics can tell us about the mind and brain. We will, of course, all be including some great talks on previous research on psychedelics as well as taking a look at the future of psychedelics. We’ve included the schedule below and more information can be found on our website.

The Student Psychedelic Conference

Middlesbrough has been operating England's only Heroin Assisted Treatment programme for 18mths with some fantastic early findings. The programme has seen dramatic increase in individual participants health and well being and a significant reduction in crime .

Daniel Ahmed is a clinical partner at foundations with 20 years' experience in the substance use field as a specialist mental health nurse prescriber.

Aims of the Scheme :
Reduce the number of deaths caused by heroin addiction;
Promote independence, long-term recovery and end offending behaviour;
Provide respite for local residents and businesses, who often find themselves victims of crime to fund addiction;
Remove the health risks associated with street heroin and drug litter;
Free up substantial public resources, including health and police, currently dealing with the problem;
Cut off funding streams to drugs gangs

Heroin assisted treatment - Saving lives and communities

Recent advances in the global landscape of hepatitis C diagnostics and treatments provides a powerful momentum in low‐ and middle‐income countries to scale up their public health response towards the elimination of viral hepatitis as a public health threat by 2030. This third global report highlights the impressive recent gains achieved by some highburden countries latest and the developments in the key enablers of a successful response – market conditions related to product availability, pricing and patents, access to diagnostics, norms and standards; national policy and regulatory environments; and options for leveraging efficiencies in service delivery. Join the World Health Organization (WHO) at a virtual event to launch the new 2020 report ‐ Accelerating access to hepatitis C diagnostics and treatment: Overcoming barriers in low‐ and middle‐income countries.

1. Opening remarks and introduction
2. Report 2020 Key Messages :

Evolving access landscape for a successful public health response - challenges and opportunities

Focus on access to diagnostics – a game-changer?

Highlights on intellectual property rights and HCV diagnostics and treatment

3. Panel session – voices and experiences from countries and organization’s working on access
4. Questions and Answers
5. Closing remarks


Daniel Low-Beer, Global HIV, Hepatitis and STIs Programmes, World Health Organization

Dr. Minghui Ren, Assistant Director-General, Universal Health Coverage/Communicable and Noncommunicable Diseases, WHO

Dr Mariangela Simao, Assistant Director-General, Access to Medicines and Health Products (MHP), WHO

Meg Doherty, Director, Global HIV, Hepatitis and STIs Programmes (HHS), WHO

Françoise Renaud, Technical lead, WHO/HHS

Adriana Velazquez, Team Lead, Medical Devices, and Diagnostics WHO/MHP

Mercedes Perez Gonzales, Technical officer, Medical Devices and Diagnostics, WHO/MHP

Erika Duenas Loayaz, Technical officer, Intellectual Property Management, WHO/MHP

Olufunmilayo LESI, Team Lead, Global Hepatitis Programme, WHO/HHS

Janvier Serumondo, Director Hepatitis Program, Ministry of Health, Rwanda

Charles Gore, Executive Director, Medicines Patent Pool

Craig McClure, Senior Director, Viral Hepatitis, Clinton Health Access Initiative

Othman Mellouk, International Treatment Preparedness Coalition

Past Events