Overview : - Context
Drug abuse is major public health problem worldwide. While an estimated 246 million people aged 15 to 64 years used at least one illicit drug in 2013, more than 1 in 10 of the drug users are either injecting drugs or engaging in long duration or regular use of opioids, cocaine and/or amphetamines. In Africa, more than 45,000 people were said to be consuming cannabis, opoids, and opiates annually. Abuse of drugs and substances continues to be a major challenge as the cultivation and supply of illicit drugs increases worldwide. Furthermore, West Africa serves as a transit area for illicit drugs such as heroin bound for Europe and other regions. While communities in West Africa suffer from psychosocial, economic, and health consequences of drug abuse, unavailability of reliable data for monitoring the extent, patterns, and trends of drug abuse constitutes a major setback to prevention, and demand reduction efforts in the region. Although available evidence suggests an increasing trend in drug use especially among young people in West Africa, data on extent of drug abuse, patterns and trends are inadequate for evaluation and planning of prevention of demand reduction and treatment programmes. Drug use behaviour often begin in early adolescence. While household surveys are targeted towards a wide segment of the population aged 15-64 years, young respondents often form a small proportion of the target population such that resulting samples usually contain too few young people for analysis to be meaningful. School surveys are therefore important to estimate drug use prevalence among youths. While school survey is the most efficient and frequently used method for data collection on alcohol, tobacco, and drug use, it is also cost effective and relatively easy to conduct. Furthermore, school surveys may be more valid as young people are often more comfortable admitting to socially disapproved behaviours including drug use in school settings rather than in the home. Offers can be sent by email to : offres.burkina@undp.org no later than June 13th, 2017 |
