Community forum: Why AD is a failure

Posted on 12 Jul 2007 by ENCOD

Alternative development is the key element of the European strategy against illicit drugs production in developing countries. The following article identifies and compares the main conclusions of the experiences with AD.

Every war has its motivation, its excuse. If you want to continue destroying your enemies, you need to keep justifying yourself. In a democracy, this means that you have to be able to criminalise the people you fight against, to make sure that they are not considered as “respectable” citizens. Therefore, you have to be able to contradict the “respectable” arguments that may motivate your enemies’ behaviour, such as, for example, sheer poverty. You need to prove that, in fact, their only motive is to enrich themselves. In this way, you will create a public image according to which your ene-mies are causing damage to society, and you are trying to stop them from doing it.

The war against drugs production, that is against those peasant communities involved in growing cannabis, coca or opium, is no exception to this rule. If you want to continue spending billions of tax dollars in military operations that end up destroying the livelihood of peasants in some of the least developed countries in the world, you need to prove that they are to be held responsible for damage being done to society in general. That these peasants should not be considered as respectable citizens, but as accomplices of drugs traffickers. That in fact, they had an alternative option, but refused to choose it. And that therefore, it has been people’s own choice to grow illicit crops and they deserve to face the law.

For the past 30 years, agencies working under auspices of the United Nations, the United States and the European Union have tried to create this ‘alter-native option’. Programmes aiming at ‘Crop Replacement’, or ‘Alternative Development’ (AD), have been implemented to enable Asian, African and Latin-American peasants to substitute illicit crops with legal alternatives as their main income sources. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this approach. Unlike forced eradication, it recognises that the issue is rooted in social and economic problems that need solutions that people benefit, not suffer from. However, how does this work in practice? What is the real impact of what seems to be an enlightened form of drugs control? Is development an alternative to drugs, and, above all, to the use of violence?

Europe has to consider whether it will continue to invest significant amounts of money in alternative development as a complementary element to forced eradication operations, which are financed - as always - by the United States Government. Hundreds of million dollars have been spent on programmes on which impact absolutely no information is available today, but the increase in illicit cultivation that has taken place since the programmes started may suggest this impact has been ‘insufficient’ to put it in diplomatic terms.

An assessment of the success or failure of AD projects should normally be based on data collected among their main target group: coca- or opium growing peasants. Based upon an in-depth opinion survey among 100 peasants in the coca-producing region of Chapare, Bolivia, a report of the Bolivian NGO CEDIB from 2001 offers interesting insight in the way the beneficiaries perceive the AD projects that have been carried out in this region since 1990, for a total amount of 260 million dollars. First of all, it is interesting to note that of all 100 peasants surveyed, 81 have a yearly income of less than 5,000 dollars, and for 80 of them, coca counts for 40% or more of their income. An overwhelming majority, 92, has effectively taken part in alternative de-velopment projects, and 70 have reduced their coca in order to receive this form of assistance. Obviously, the increase in life standards is mentioned as the main reason for initiating the collaboration, b

Posted on 13 Jul 2007 by Marcus

Joep, thanks for posting your views.

I note that you seem to be focussing mainly on the Andean region. If you look to Thailand you can find fairly successful AD experiences.

In my opinion, one of the reasons why AD experiences outside of Thailand have usually been less succesful than has been that the main transferable lessons of the Thai experience have not been properly taken into account. These are
- Take a very long-term view. Engagements with communities and regions should be planned over decades, not 1-2 years.
- Make a serious commitment to working through, and building the capacity of, the government. The main providers of services in AD areas should be the relevant government agencies, not external contractors. When external contractors are used, they should be working primarily on building the capacity of the government agencies that will be doing the work in the area.
- Use leadership to bring consistency and political commitment. A strong influence from a President, King or other influential figure is needed to make sure that the government adopts a sound and progressive policy, and gives it time to bear fruit. This needs to be backed up with high and long-term public investment in infrastructure and social services.
- Take a tolerant and flexible approach to eradication. The plantations of drug-lords can be eradicated immediately, but poor farmers need to be given the opportunity to try new crops before the option of eradication is even tabled.

There is a case-study of the Thai experience elsewhere on this site if you’re not familiar with it.

Posted on 13 Jul 2007 by T. Gibson

I have never been to South America but it seems the conditions there are significantly different to the opium poppy growing hills of South-east Asia which is the area I have worked in. I generally agree with the principles elucidated by Marcos in his reply as being applicable to the south-east Asian hills i.e. long-term commitment; working with and through the Government with, most importantly, the active support of the Government; having a competent, authoritive figure who will promote development to the best interests of the ex-illegal drug producing farmer; and, being tolerant and flexible in development and enforcement practices. It is most important, from my observation and experience, that the illegal production of the drug be enforced, otherwise the farmers will not readily give up this practice. But the enforcement MUST be accompanied by a holistic development programme that reliably supports alternative means of income (or food production) and improvement in education, health, communications. This programme has worked very well in south-east Asia; I do not know how it could be applied to south America.

The development community of south-east Asia and even the Government officers themselves, generally do not see the poppy farmers as enemies, or undesirables, or warlords, or any such like. The poppy farmers are/were (since there are fewer poppy farmers left these days) seen as being poor, disadvantaged minority groups who were struggling to survive to feed, cloth and educate their families in a difficult environment and who suffered from the effects of opium production which encouraged local addiction and the social problems that followed on from that.