Click here to view the MENAHRA website
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 The International Harm Reduction Association (IHRA) – in partnership with the World Health Organization (WHO), and with funding from the Drosos Foundation in Switzerland – has developed a groundbreaking project entitled “Strengthening Civil Society’s Role in Delivering Harm Reduction Services in the Middle East and North Africa”. The project aims to build harm reduction capacity in the region through the establishment of a new regional harm reduction network – ‘MENAHRA’ – and three sub-regional harm reduction Knowledge Hubs (in Iran, Lebanon and Morocco).
The need for such a network in the Middle East and North Africa emerged from a regional consultation on harm reduction in November 2006 (organised by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNAIDS, WHO and GTZ). As a result, MENAHRA was formally launched in Cairo, Egypt in June 2007.
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 Click here for the official network launch announcement in English [PDF:39KB]
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Click here for the official network launch announcement in French [PDF:43KB]
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Click here for the official network launch announcement in Arabic [PDF:140KB]
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Click here for the official network launch announcement in Farsi [PDF:130KB]
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The MENAHRA network is coordinated by Soins Infirmiers et Developpement Communautaire (SIDC) in Lebanon. In this secretariat role, SIDC is responsible for identifying potential members and partners in the region, and running the MENAHRA website – which includes news and information on harm reduction in the region. To guide their work, a Project Management Group (PMG) has also been established – including representatives SIDC, the knowledge hubs, WHO, Drosos and IHRA.
Since June 2007, the MENAHRA network has been working hard to achieve visibility across the region and engage with a wide range of partners. This has included the development of a network ‘brand’, a presence at the annual IHRA conferences, facilitating networking through training and site visits, and releasing regular newsletters which document harm reduction activities, news and events of NGOs across the region, as well as other relevant international developments. There are currently around 400 members of the network – including regional and international experts.
In April 2008, a press conference was held in Lebanon to update the region’s media on how MENAHRA was developing. The event was attended by journalists, academics, clerics and law enforcers, and representatives of several regional NGOs and goverment departments. The press conference was well recieved and resulted in a lot of media coverage of the network in the regional media. This was then followed by an open meeting at Harm Reduction 2008: IHRA’s 19th International Conference for harm reduction experts from around the world to learn more about MENAHRA.
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