National Drug Policy Coordination: A Key Element of Success

Inadequate coordination is one of the major barriers to effective intervention in to the growing drug menace. Effective coordination of stakeholders is key to success in the implementation of anti-drug policies. This paper presents the network governance model as a means of highlighting the importance of coordination in the fight against drugs. The paper focuses on two research objectives: to describe the official coordination systems employed in different countries, and to provide recommendations to strengthen the coordination mechanism for drug strategy formulation and implementation globally and locally based on theoretical framework and best international practices. To this aim, a two-staged process of literature and document research on official documents and open sources was conducted. Unique examples from national coordination systems of different countries (Türkiye, United Kingdom, France, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Portugal) as reported to EMCDDA which are employed for fight with drugs in developing and implementing strategies for increasing policy performance were reviewed. The paper finalizes with various international practices based of which recommendations are made in an effort to contribute to strengthen the national coordination system in Northern Cyprus.