Our Rights, Every Body’s Rights

The purpose of Our Rights, Every Body’s Rights is to build the capacity of communities of people who use drugs in developing their advocacy strategy and leveraging the momentum of the Global AIDS Strategy 2021 – 2026 and the 2021 Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS, particularly the societal enablers targets (10-10-10) and community-led responses targets (30-80-60). Through this project, INPUD has developed a training module to help our community develop an advocacy roadmap based on human rights and accountability principles. The module includes interactive learning activities alongside educational content and is accompanied by handouts, slide decks and other resources which a facilitator can adapt. The advocacy roadmap is accompanied by a legal assessment tool kit to strengthen further our community’s influence in key spaces such as the National Strategic Plan review, the Global Fund GC7 and other opportunities.

The training module has been implemented in workshops taking place in South Africa, Nigeria and Indonesia, while a regional training was also hosted in Kenya and a regional virtual training was held for the drug user networks in Eurasia. The advocacy roadmaps developed by the South African Network of People who Use Drugs (SANPUD) and the Drug Harm Reduction Advocacy Network (DHRAN), along with the accompanying legal scans, have already positively impacted each country. For instance, SANPUD played a pivotal role in the 2023 Africa Policy Week by convening drug user-led networks within sub-Saharan Africa to discuss decriminalisation. In Nigeria, successful advocacy by DHRAN during GC7 led to the inclusion of funding for advocacy on decriminalisation of drug use, which is expected to be reviewed at the end of 2024.

This project is supported through the UNAIDS Technical Assistance Mechanism, with additional support from the Love Alliance and Robert Carr Fund.

Technical Assistance Module

The manual contains both content and interactive learning activities for use by facilitators to run a capacity strengthening workshop for people who use drugs on advocacy for drug policy. By the end of the workshop participants will have been supported to develop an advocacy roadmap or action plan to take their drug policy advocacy forward. The manual is accompanied by a set of PowerPoint slides (Annexure A) and handouts (Annexure B) for use by the facilitator, which can be found below.

Handouts

Global Training of Trainers
12 – 15 June 2023, South Africa

In 2023, INPUD expanded on the initiative by hosting a Global Training of Trainers (Global ToT) in South Africa. A total of 18 drug user leaders and activists were trained in facilitation skills, developing and adapting training materials and developing the advocacy roadmap. Representatives from the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), Global Fund, UNODC and WHO were invited to engage in a hybrid interactive exchange with the participants, where each stakeholder representative was asked to share their work contributing to the 10-10-10 and 30- 80-60 of the Global AIDS Targets. This engagement also came at the beginning of SANPUD’s collaboration with the UNODC Regional Office for Southern Africa at the 2023 Africa Policy Week