Our partner in Serbia

The EMCDDA has been cooperating through technical projects with Serbia since 2007. The current Serbian national drugs strategy covers the period 2014–21. The national drug observatory (NDO) operates within the Ministry of Health. In 2014, the Institute of Public Health of Serbia carried out a national survey on the lifestyles of citizens in Serbia with the support of the EMCDDA- IPA project.

The EMCDDA and Serbia also exchange expertise and data on new psychoactive substances (NPS) and on the further strengthening of the established national early-warning system (NEWS). Serbia has published a NEWS profile, which presents the structure, objectives and working methods of the Serbian national early warning system and also describes the functions of the institutions participating in the early warning system and its data collection tools. The publication of the NEWS profile was followed by a NPS training for health workers In December 2018.

In 2018, the EMCDDA undertook an assessment of the National Drugs Observatory and the National Early Warning System, making a series of recommendations and identifying possible activities to be undertaken in future.