West Africa Commission on Drugs to visit Senegal

Accra (8 April 2013): A delegation of the West Africa Commission on Drugs (WACD) is to visit Senegal this week from Wednesday to Friday (10-12 April) for a series of consultations. The Commission has been formed in response to the dramatic surge in drug trafficking and consumption through West Africa over the past decade.

Over the course of their 3-day visit to Senegal, the delegation will meet with Senegalese authorities, international and regional organisations as well as civil society groups. The delegation will hold a press conference on Thursday, 11 April in the afternoon at the Novotel, to share their impressions of the visit with local and international journalists.

The three-person WACD delegation will comprise: Pedro Pires, the former president of Cap Verde; Mrs. Christine Kafondo, a civil society leader in the HIV/AIDS field from Burkina Faso; and Dr. Alpha Diallo, a medical doctor and youth leader from Guinea.

Country visits like this one, combined with experts’ fact-finding reports, will contribute to the WACD’s understanding of the impact of drug trafficking on the region, and help it formulate its recommendations with a view to releasing an authoritative report due out next January, which will be followed by an advocacy campaign.

Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations and Nobel Prize laureate, launched the WACD in Accra in January 2013 in a bid to tackle drug trafficking and consumption in West Africa and their impact on security, governance and public health. It is chaired by former President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria.