CND Chair: Links to the presentations will be sent out to members. This is the first meeting after the productive sixtieth session. During that meeting, there were good resolutions and much scheduling, and the meeting ended on time. 1750 people were there and over one hundred side events occurred. The meeting functioned in an inclusive way. This inclusive nature strengthens the work of Vienna and puts the work on the map. In January, we started with Resolution 60/1 for preparations for the sixty-second session for the Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which charged a course for preparing for 2019.

This resolution has financial implications and therefore must be approved by ECOSOC in July before it can be considered by the 5th committee of the GA. Everyone should encourage this to happen. The substantive pre 4th biannual report by the executive director for states to implement will be prepared later this year for consideration at the commission’s meeting for the sixty-first session. The deadline for responses is the end of this month. All information must be accurate and will be shared through the ARQ. Each state should reach out to their national focal points because there are still 3 weeks before the deadline. CCPCJ and CND approved and recommended by adoption by ECOSOC on the extension on the mandate on the standing of the working group on improving the governance and financial situation of UNODC. CCPCJ’s Chair sent a letter with the CND Chair to the chairs of the regional groups to consider nominating persons to be co-chairs of the working groups by the end of June. The Ambassador of Switzerland said Ruiz Counsellor permanent mission of Spain would stand for election as co-chair. We are still waiting for one nomination from the G-77 and China. CND 5230/13 and CCPJ 18/3 state the co-chair person should be jointly nominated by the extended bureau of the commission and endorsed in a plenary meeting. The next meeting to endorse the candidate will be at the September 26th intersessional.

Decision by the Statistical Commission did consider a process of testing drugs. The institute for statistics and geography of Mexico and UNODC in consultation with World Customs, Inter American Drug Abuse Commission, UN monitoring centre and WHO created this report. The report complains about the set of actions to improve access to drug testing statistics. The Statistical Commission considered the report and, recognizing the role of the CND as the UN policy making body with the primary responsibility with drug control matters commended it for the consideration of the CND; the commission encouraged collaboration with the Statistical Commission and the CND. The Statistical Commission stands ready to work with the CND. It is up to the CND to decide how to proceed. The CND would decide what to measure but the Statistical Commission will help to conduct this and it is important to analyse the sustainable development goals. Thank you to the Mexican government for all their work and helping the CND move forward in a meaningful way.

Angela Me Chief of the UNODC Statistics and Surveys Section: It is positive to see the value data has for policy-making. Intergovernmental discussions on drug statistics in 2017, presentations made at previous intersessional meetings, meetings of the UN Statistical Commission, CND 60th session, so what comes next? The Statistical Commission every year creates a 5 year world program, where the commission defines the topics of in depth discussion for the next 5 years. Drug statistics are planned for discussion every 3 years and for 2018 crime discussions will take place. Responding to this work plan UNODC was asked to prepare a document. The Statistical Commission usually has supplemental documents with their own documents. For drug statistics, the national institute of Mexico volunteered to help with the paper and the CND jointly created the paper and submitted it to the Statistical Commission. The paper is available and translated. The consultative process in producing this document involved the WHO, World Customs Organization, UNAIDS, EMCDDA, CICAD/OAS. The audience for this paper are national statistical offices of countries. The report highlighted the role of national statistical offices for drug statistics. The role for national statistical offices could coordinate terminology and accountability practices, gather and centralize national data, analyse data and ensure confidentiality as well as disseminate the information to stakeholders. The road map of the report shows the statistical sources of drug statistics, surveys, models of estimating of key populations, administrative records and seizures. Try to map these sources with the drug resources, the criminal justice system, treatment etc. The paper is structured in 3 parts; 1) the problem/ data quality problems 2) mythological development and 3) capacity building. Responses to methodological challenges include creating methodological guidelines for drug use with population surveys, creating guidelines on drug use metrics based on wastewater analysis, guidelines for the production of data on drug availability, guidelines for the production of data on SDG 3.5.1 (the coverage of drug treatment, the nominator and denominator require guidelines), impact of methods for measuring alternative development programs and new statistical measures. UNGASS called for new data and new methods, and the road map includes developing new statistical measures to respond to the call of the UNGASS document. Capacity building will require e-learning training modules, regional and national training producing, collecting and reporting. Between fifteen and twenty countries voiced their support from a statistical point of view. But it is recognized though that it is not only for the statistical commission to talk about the road map. So now there needs to be a connection between the CND and Statistical Commission to harmonize the process. The CND’s role is to say what to measure, which comes from the UNGASS document. The UN Statistical Commission governs how to collect the data, which is derived from the fundamental principles of official statistics.

Expert Consultation around October, or November 2017 will involve national experts from drug related institutions, for example people who fill out the ARQ at the national level, persons working in national statistical offices, person working in national and multi-national organizations responsible for drug related data, academics, balanced participation of demand and supply and other OC issues. These actors will review priority activities for capacity buildings.

The UNGASS outcome document in relation to new demand for statistics is explored as well as how to implement them in global data collection. The report of this expert consultation will serve as a room document for the reconvened CND session in December. There will be invitations to member states to call to cooperate with the Statistical Commission. Responses range from no action all the way to inviting the SC to speak at the CND or appoint focal points.

CND Chair: The commission should make the most of the opportunity to work with the Statistical Commission There will be no decision made on this today but we will remain seized with the matter. Dates for reconvening are December seventh and eighth. An additional intersessional meeting will be held in autumn in order to prepare for this session. The report of the executive director on the budget for UNODC will be discussed prior to the December session. The Commission will also have the strategic framework for UNODC for  2020 and 2021; this document will also be reviewed during the meetings prior to the December reconvening. At the last reconvened session of the commission we had an UNGASS special segment to discuss progress in the implementation of the outcome document, we need to decide the latest in September, if we want to have an additional day for an UNGASS special session at the next meeting. We will not make a decision on this today.

CND Secretariat: Given the existing entitlements of CND, the commission could dedicate an additional day in December to dedicate to substantive matters in addition to the established work.

CND Chair: Next agenda item is to follow up to the UNGASS 2016. I warmly welcome post-UNGASS facilitator, Ambassador Pedro.

Post-UNGASS Facilitator: Hello to all members. In CND resolution 60/1 the Chair negotiated for 2019. The Chairman decided to continue to hold intersessional documents to continue working on best practices. Recalling that the core of the UNGASS follow up were two UNGASS discussions covering all seven chapters of UNGASS. In October last year, countries exchanged lessons learned to translate the UNGASS document, concluding with remarks on the way forward. Proposal one efforts need to be focused on implementing UNGASS, and putting into practice the goals made at UNGASS, and the CND should make every effort to benefit from all stakeholders, UN entities, international and regional organizations as well as civil society- comprehensive meaning that the same attention should be given to each chapter of the seven chapters of the UNGASS document. I would like to propose to enrich our discussions, a series of enriching our thematic discussions by hosting panel discussions prior to the interactive discussions. I propose to organize dedicated panels for each of the seven chapters. Outlining separate meetings for each of the seven chapter meetings. The debate should be enriched with panel discussions during the UNGASS special session. The discussion would identify eight to nine panelists for each discussion, five panelists chosen by the regional groups, three seats reserved for UN entities and Intergovernmental UN members and one panelist from civil society. If this proposal is agreeable with the Commission then I will start with the necessary preparations.

Canada: We have not seen the work plan and we want to know the dates.

Post-UNGASS Facilitator: The discussions will be held on September 26-28 to discuss UNGASS chapters 1,2,4, October 16-18 for chapters 3,5 and 7 and November 16-17 to address chapter 6 and ways of moving forward. There will be a full day for each of the seven chapters of the document.

Egypt: We have also not seen the proposal and it will be discussed further within the delegations and afterwards we can give concrete commands. For Egypt, we think it is important that to prepare for the upcoming intersessionals we need perspective for tackling the UNGASS document. Our proposal is that there is a focus on technical assistance as a main theme for tackling the different thematic chapters.

Post-UNGASS Facilitator: The 16th and 17th are exclusively dedicated  to chapter six, and while all chapters are important to sharing our experiences. The fact that we are devoting two full days to chapter six, we therefore are indicating that we place importance on the aspects you are referring to

Switzerland: We are fine with the proposal you made and look forward to looking at the national and international levels of implementation. In regards to the composition of the panels, we call on the bureau and the secretariat to maintain flexibility in regards to civil society participants on the panel. Civil society has a proud diversity of views, as with the members states, and if you want to have a truly productive discussion, it would be advisable to have two civil society members, at least for the chapters where civil society have increased interest.

Post-UNGASS Facilitator: The intention will be to follow up on what has been done in the last two months, so civil society will be included throughout the sessions. But I take the point that you would like to have more presence of panelists of civil society for different discussions. We will consider that but cannot make any promises.

Malta, on behalf of the European Union: Thank you. We are speaking on behalf of the European Union. The commission has further affirmed the commitments we have made to address the world drug problem. The outcome document provides a true possibility to address comprehensively and in a balanced manner the world drug problem. The thematic discussion of each of the chapters gives a good overview and we support the proposal of continued thematic discussions as offered by the facilitator. We see merits to close cooperation with commissions. We support the proposal for expert consultations. We encourage the UNODC to continue to foster cooperation for implementation of the outcome document.

Pakistan: Thank you to the secretariat for the presentation earlier today and thank you to the UNGASS facilitator for giving guidance on continued implementation of UNGASS. We welcome the exchange of views on the implementation of the outcome document, and we are supportive to have regular exchanges of views on the progress of the implementation of this document. Madame Chair, this is the first time I am viewing the work document, and I hope we will have time to share this work document with our respective national institutions. My last input is to ask what exactly is our expectations for this round of follow-up discussion for this round of examining the UNGASS document? Is it just exchanging experiences in implementing, the challenges that the members may be confronting in implementing the outcome document tor do we have other expectations for this forthcoming session.

CND Chair: We have had several rounds and there have been a lot of suggestions on best practice and examples and it was our intention to have these put forward and then in moving this agenda more concretely- what works in some countries and then building on what we had had in this respect. And for those who were here at 9 this morning when we looked at measures and gaps and needs in supply reduction in the area of scheduling this is one concrete example of how we thought we would dwell and go more deeply in this matter. When it comes to the format it has not been my understanding that we are changing anything. It will be an open dialogue, for new inputs but based on the dialogues we have had so far and the concrete proposals that I understand is being compiled in different areas. I am saying this because we all recall the challenges are different for one region compared to another and also here, from country to country. So, for example if we look at the decisions on alternative development, we would want to look at those recommendations and bring in here other relevant organizations, that can help us to deliver and fill in these gaps. The more planning, we have for this, the better we can cater for moving in a more direct way, as Angela said, so we know that the resources we put forth are put to best possible use.

Post-UNGASS Facilitator:  I see these rounds of discussions as an opportunity for members states to discuss what they are doing toward implementation. This will help member states who are challenged in implementing the outcome document. These countries will be helped by hearing about how other countries have overcome challenges toward implementation. These sessions will exchange the experiences of countries who have successfully implemented the recommendations of the UNGASS document with countries who have not been able to implement as successfully.

CND Chair: It would be good if we could agree on the proposal now and later discuss the panels.

United Kingdom: Thank you for the floor. We would like to congratulate the Ambassador of Norway for the successful CND, and welcome back the post-UNGASS facilitator, we look forward to working with him in implementing UNGASS. The UK is pleased that the initial follow up to UNGASS carried out through the commission through the intersessional meetings last year, and we are happy that new the proposal is being structured in similar lines, and we look forward to taking part in these discussions. The international action group on new psychoactive substances, has created a report on the actions that they are taking related to chapter five. This report has been circulated as paper five. We hope this group will update the report for future sessions and we hope that this can be used on the website to recognize progress in the implementation of the UNGASS recommendations.

Colombia: Thank you to the Chair for organizing this meeting and we are happy to see the facilitator back. I am seeing the working document for the first time, but I am sure my capital will be happy to continue discussions and we plan to participate. We would propose including in either the panel or the format: what are the challenges in implementing the recommendations? If we learn from others what they have done, and what they needed to do, and what are countries facing to implement these recommendations, such as mine. So we should include the lessons learned from the organizational tactics on a national level. That can also be incorporated in the format you are proposing for the follow up and I would like to request if we can have the information from the sessions in each of the six languages.

Secretary: Obviously, what has been brought to your attention and what the secretariat have had a chance in preparing for the chair in preparing this. As is the case in the past, we will do our best to translating the dialogues, but placing the information on the website exploits our resources. We are committed to multi-languages, but our main challenges here is the resource constraints that we have. But if you share something in the official languages, but we do not have the resources at this time to make all the information available in all the official languages. Thank you.

Spain: Good morning everybody. Thank you, ambassadors, especially the facilitator for pushing this process. We will support your ideas and we think this is a project that goes to the future and we will support you without any doubt. Complimentary to ideas given by Colombia, which we regret the response to, we want to know if the information you are giving us is the official information or if you plan to pass this information along in a non-verbal form. Can we send this information to our capitals immediately?

Secretary: I understand that you are referring to something we were discussing at a previous thematic discussion, in what can be done for the secretariat to make sure the information is translated on the website. This would help but it is in a voluntary manner. The secretariat has called member states to discuss implementation processes voluntary with other members. The CND would ask the members states but also other stakeholders, to make sure that what has been agreed upon is translated to real action on the ground. So, this is an additional tool to make sure information is also available on the websites. Colombia, if I understand correctly, wanted to add columns on those forms. The commission can do this if they wish, easily, but the outcome of the meeting would have the information attached in a special message. Any additional comments from today would be reflected and added to the documentation to the outcome of today’s meeting. And maybe as an explanation, thanks to the support from conference management, we want to make sure the thematic discussions have interpretations available in all the official languages, so I was referring to the information that is going to be shared in writing.

Russia: Thank you to the commission for the important work done in March and the important resolutions that were made. Thank you to the secretariat for the work plan which we believe will help us move forward in implementing UNGASS. We have one minor question, regarding Resolution 60-1 of the CND session where the commission decided that the preparations for the ministerial segment of the 62nd session to be held in 2019 will be continued during its 51st session including in its intersessional segment? I think its huge work and should be reflected in the intersessional period and should find a place in our deliberations and thematic discussions. Thank you very much.

CND Chair: Of course, we will deal with the intersessional, and also the other parts of the preparations. These are the ones regarding UNGASS. But in that resolution, it was clearly spelled out that these questions are interlinked and not everyone liked some phraseology there but we are not talking about totally separate things. We will also be dealing with the other important part of the 62nd session.

Iran: Thank you Madame Chair for holding this meeting and thank you to the facilitator for adding his ideas to continuing the implementation of UNGASS. We share Pakistan’s concern in the timing and hope that we will have time to share this information for the thematic discussions with our national capitals. On many of the panels, we might add some other topics for the panels and also about the content of the panels. In case of receiving this information in advanced we would be in a position to agree in this meeting, but since it has not been shared with us in advance, and naturally it has not been shared with the capital, I think we deserve some more time to digest them and come back to you at a later stage. Maybe we need to have some mechanism for this.

CND Chair: I suggested that we agree on the dates today for the intersessional. We can use the extended bureau and maybe agree to a silent procedure in order to retain to the matter. But we all agree that we want it to be substantive and productive, so we should push for a final conclusion on this before the summer recess. I do understand you would like to take it to capitals, but there is a big demand for rooms so let us agree on the dates and then we can discuss and use the extended mechanism. That is the proposal of the chair.

Post-UNGASS Facilitator: If I had taken the floor to answer I would have said exactly what you said. The dates have to be fixed because there is a heavy schedule. In previous sessions, members asked for workplans in advance, in order to find experts, so of course what the chair just said is shared by me. The dates should be fixed now, otherwise we will have a problem in finding a room. But the issues that will be dealt with are in the hands of the member states.

Belgium: We thank you ambassador, I would like to give you a warm welcome to Vienna. We welcome the proposed work plan, and we like that it is structured of the seven UNGASS chapters. And with the absence of a mechanism to ensure monitoring successful implementation of UNGASS, this is one way to exchange experiences. We have liked the previous round of thematic discussions. We are also looking forward to participating in discussions and be able to go in depth. So, we look forward to the sessions in autumn. We also know that because of time management it is important to fix dates.

Post-UNGASS Facilitator: The way it works will be changed. We will have more discussion and the format will include longer interventions from civil society, member states, UN entities etc. That is something of course that you can make proposals on but I think this is a really good idea. But of course, we are open to suggestions by member states. During the meeting, you cannot talk and you cannot give the go ahead without confirmation from capitals, but again the dates will be difficult to change, but the dates need to be fixed.

If there are no more questions, I would like to discuss subsidiary bodies. I believe it is important in the implementation of the UNGASS document, to look at the subsidiary body. I would like to thank the commission’s decision for examining how the subsidiary bodies can ensure the implementation of the UNGASS outcome document. I strongly believe the different regions re the key to success for the UNGASS outcome document. In Vienna, we will have an invitational European only, this is an important issue in that regard.

Regarding the post-UNGASS website: it is important to collect the valuable contributions, best practices and lessons learned that delegations shared during our discussions, as well as getting expertise from all different stakeholders on the implementation of the UNGASS outcome document. I have asked the secretariat to look at possibilities of increasing use of the Post-UNGASS website with a view to making this website into a knowledge base of implementing the UNGASS documents. I would like all the stakeholders to share with the secretariat the lessons learned and best practices for the implementation of the UNGASS document, with a view of ensuring coherence in the information collected. I have asked the secretariat to create and share a template for sharing this information. If the commission agrees I will ask the secretariat to make this information available on the website. I look forward to working with all of you in the upcoming months. Thank you very much.

CND Chair: Thank you for this and let me reiterate that the dates are fixed. We are expecting a response as to how the debate will proceed and I will be convening an extended bureau meeting next week and also there explaining as to the question raised by the Russian federation. Let me warmly thank our UNGASS facilitator. Regarding ECOSOC I was invited, by the president to participate in the 2017 EEOCOSOC integrated session, on making eradication of poverty an integral feature of all policies; what will that take? It was interesting meeting on an important topic. I know it is not customary that chairs are invited, and I think we should make this a practice of showing all the concrete work that is being done in Vienna. I used this visit to NY to meet with subsidiary bodies, and I think the relevant bodies to us such as the commission of social development and the chair of the inclusion of women. And if you recall we had the dialogue with that commission last year an di met with the director of the statistical office and I met with the UN budget and he wanted to see more of what we are working with here in Vienna. It was encouraging that other subsidiary bodies want to work with us and there are cross cutting issues, like how we will deliver the 2030 agenda. We need to focus on youth, when it comes to drugs, health and other topics, this is a matter that is cross cutting and I will come back to you to see how we can go about of doing something with other commissions on the youth agenda.  I think this is the way we are requested to work, and it is a positive way of working and this commission is spear heading this with the inclusive way that we are conducting our business. Are there any comments? The meetings in New York will be in July so if you have comments at the next extended bureau, when you have thought more about this I am happy to receive your comments at a later stage. I see no comments. I would like to turn to any other business and as already referred to, by ambassador Pedro, we are having the meeting and we had a short decision by the CND on the matter on following up for UNGASS and let me know that the Honlea Europe. Honlea Europe will take place in Vienna from the 27-30th of June, and I would like to urge all members to be represented at the meeting and to encourage their counter parts to actively participate in this meeting. The CND special event will be held on the 22nd of June, to commemorate the international day against drug abuse and drug trafficking and importantly we will have the launch of our world drug report on that day. Don’t forget the ARQ’s with this, I really wish you all a good lunch and a good day and look forward to the continuation of this and a warm thanks to ambassador Pedro.