CICAD surveys Alternative Development options

Alternative Development has been a key element of CICAD’s supply reduction activities, but the Commission has been selective in choosing pilot projects to underwrite. This past decade, CICAD has undertaken 13 projects: Ecuador (1), Bolivia (4), Colombia (1), and Dominica (1), Jamaica (1), Peru (1) and three regional projects. See the article on the ACCESO initiative for cacao growers.

At the May 2007 CICAD meeting in Washington, the Commission saw fit to take stock of alternative development efforts in the region. It instructed that for the Commission’s December meeting, the Executive Secretariat schedule a thematic discussion on Alternative Development and the role that CICAD might play, taking into consideration its budget limits and mandate. To guarantee that the discussion was as substantive as possible, the Secretariat prepared a white paper and for the members to serve as background information and to float several proposals for advancing CICAD’s mandate.

Alternative Development is a risky endeavor because a variety of factors influence the outcomes, many of which lie outside the control of project executors – everything from environmental and climatic conditions to political and social upheaval, from agricultural pricing policies to adequate upkeep for highway infrastructure, from plant diseases to globalization.

 Moving Alternative Development products to new markets: Peru's OroVerde cooperative has been successful exporting coffee to European markets.

The concept paper sums up CICAD’s efforts:

"The Executive Secretariat of the CICAD, to the extent of its possibilities, based on long-term experience and on the respect earned from its Member States, is still positioned as a center of excellence to conduct projects of impact in Alternative Development. It can and must gather and process data on experiences that allow the identification of methodologies, activities and means ("how to") through which the goals of the different projects were reached, and of lessons learned that could be successfully replicated in other projects. (Paragraph 50)

To deepen understanding of the issue, the Executive Secretariat also organized a panel of experts at Santa Marta that examined lessons learned from past experiences in delivering alternative development projects. The panel represented the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the European Community (EC), the US Agency for International Development (USAID)  and CICAD itself.

Brainstorming

Judging from the ensuing discussion at Santa Marta, the topic sparked the active interest of all the delegations, some of which brought their own experts or representatives directly from the field. Several delegates raised concrete proposals for consideration.

The Commission decided to create an Expert Group on Alternative Development that will meet in late February to determine which proposals hold the most promise for follow-up from those discussed at Santa Marta and any others that might arise. These suggestions include:

CICAD supported a project for improving organic bananas in the Alto Beni region of Bolivia.

Approach the World Trade Organization (WTO), via the competent OAS body, to facilitate trade in Alternative Development products (Argentina);
• Strengthen producer associations (Peru);
• Establish a mechanism for awarding an Alternative Development seal to products certified as replacing illicit drug crops (Executive Secretary, see the concept paper);
• Apply biodiversity strategies in Alternative Development programs (Executive Secretary);
• Develop programs that allow assets confiscated from drug trafficking to be used in prevention and treatment actions, among others (human development, Costa Rica);
• Develop programs that contain development components (learned from Alternative Development projects) for transit countries to counteract drug trafficking (Ecuador, Venezuela);
• Facilitate the participation of isolated community groups in their local government (Strengthen the management capacity of, and inter-institutional coordination within local governments) (Bolivia);
• Undertake a study to analyze the viability of applying components of Alternative Development in in the Caribbean region (Antigua and Barbuda, Trinidad and Tobago).

As another outcome from the discussion, many peer organizations, like the UNODC, the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), the Inter-American Institutive for Agricultural Cooperation (IICA) and the EC, demonstrated that they view CICAD as a valuable interlocutor for exploring the options for change and as an ally in forging an international coalition for action.