Towards 10 by 20: Tracking Harm Reduction and Law Enforcement Spend for PWUD and HIV Organisations in Low Income Country Contexts

Emily Rowe, Ardhany Suryadarma

Harm Reduction International’s (HRI) research shows that harm reduction funding in low and middle income countries totaled US$188million in 2016, only 13% of the US$1.5billion estimated resource need. Only ten countries were identified to have substantial domestic investment (over US$1million) in their harm reduction programmes. However, many governments continue to heavily invest in punitive drug policies and drug law enforcement that do not impact upon drug use or related harms, but perpetuate systemic discrimination towards people who use drugs (PWUD) and create barriers to accessing vital health services. In response to this, HRI launched “10 by 20”, a campaign that calls on governments to redirect a small proportion of the funding that they currently spend on ineffective drug control to harm reduction. In order to inform arguments for this redirection, HRI has developed two easily applied tracking tools, one exploring harm reduction investment and one assessing law enforcement and drug control spending to be used by community-based and advocacy focused organisations. This workshop is designed to train organisations on how to use the tools to inform advocacy efforts within their own country contexts. In addition to this capacity building, participants will also learn first-hand from lessons learnt applying the tools in Thailand and Indonesia, and actively explore ways in which data obtained can inform both national and global level advocacy work. Workshop objectives:
• To train harm reduction advocates and activists to use tools to track harm reduction investment and drug law enforcement spend;
• To share experiences from Thailand and Indonesia in using the tracking tools;
• To discuss ways in which data collected can inform both local and global advocacy efforts;
• To work with participants to identify key “10by20” campaign stakeholders in their countries in order to develop evidence-based advocacy strategies for redirection of funding.