High mortality of population of economically active age hinders basic development of Eastern European countries. According to the WHO estimates about a half of this mortality is caused by alcohol, tobacco and drugs. At the same time problems associated with drug, alcohol and tobacco use have low priority in the list of state objectives. It is substantially caused by the lack of relevant information easily available to authorities, mass-media and general public.

1. ANALYSIS OF PARTICIPANTS

1.1 The project is supposed to influence the work of different agencies, organisations, groups and people involved in alcohol and drug policy, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation in Eastern European countries. Russian speaking organisation members and specialists are to influence the project in case they are possessing and are interested in the information on drug and alcohol issues. Among the organisations that have already expressed their interest to participate in the information network are: IOGT-Estonia, Latvian Youth Movement, Ziemelblasma Temperance Society, Latgalian Teachers Association (Latvia), Baltu Ainai (Lithuania), NAN Foundation (Moscow, Russia), Addiction Prevention Centre Choice (Kazan, Russia). The participants mentioned above are considered as future providers and users of the information. ADIC-Ukraine will be a co-ordinator of the network. Any organisation or individual, those are not under influence of alcohol and/or tobacco industry, are welcome to join the network.

1.2 The target group is the Russian speaking individuals and organisations, involved in alcohol and drug policy, prevention, research, treatment and rehabilitation in Eastern European countries. They can be classified due to their access to facilities:

a. Internet users

b. E-mail users

c. Computer users

d. Organisations, lacking the mentioned above facilities.

The main criteria for the members of target group are:

1) interest in new information in Russian,

2) ability to supply new information in Russian.

The target group can be also divided into active and passive participants.

Active participants of the system are organisations, institutions and individuals that collect and disseminate information on alcohol, drugs and tobacco on permanent basis. At present there are 8 organisations in 5 countries that are willing to be active, while with the start of the system their number can rise substantially.

Passive participants are individuals and organisations that use information on alcohol, drugs and tobacco on time-to-time basis. They are politicians, government officials, journalists, private and public health professionals, schools, researchers and other persons. They will mainly use the system through national providers, which will become reliable and quick source of relevant information due to their active participation in the network.

The participants will inevitably disseminate information they get through the system to other people. In this sense general public is also a target group of the project.

1.3 The active participants of the target group are supposed to participate in planning (determination of information needs), implementation and follow-up of the project. The information providers are to be co-owners of the information system. Passive participants will influence the system by their requests.

1.4 The project will make more difficult access to information for those organisations and individuals, those do not possess proper sources of information. Organisations, which have no computers, will be stimulated to change their financial priorities and purchase computers to be proper participants of the information network. In this case other directions of their work can suffer through the lack of resources.

1.5 Negative influence is possible for the groups, which base their image on the absence of detailed and relevant information for the others. Organisations that use traditional methods of work and are not ready to be in line with information progress also can lose their influence in their countries and be replaced by more modern and active groups, which are not so experienced in prevention issues.

Organisations supported by alcohol and tobacco industry also will experience negative influence because they are not interested in dissemination of comprehensive information on alcohol and tobacco for authorities and general public.

2. PROBLEM ANALYSIS

2.1 The focal problem is low information level of East European NGOs, involved in alcohol, tobacco and drug prevention. This problem consists of many sub-problems, such as:

- use of one-sided information;

- lack of information on information;

- absence of systematic assessment of the existing information;

- low speed of information processing and use;

- absence of inquiries reply system;

- there is much information in English in Internet and other sources, but most members of the organisations cannot use it. In some organisations there are formed groups of English-speaking elite that participate in seminars and other information events but cannot share the information with other members of organisations through the lack of time for translations. At the same time practically all members of the organisations in Eastern European countries can use information in Russian;

- organisations in Baltic countries feel the lack of information and materials in Russian to work with Russian-speaking population of their countries. Limited resources make difficult to prepare their own materials in Russian while they are very interested to use such materials from neighbouring countries;

- there is a lot of information materials in other foreign languages as well as in native languages of the involved countries. This information is often ignored by most organisations from other countries because there is nobody to translate it within the organisation. The organisations that can translate the materials are not interested to translate it into Russian because the number of recipients within their own countries is too limited.

2.2 Causes of the problem:

- lack of informational culture;

- lack of a reliable source of relevant information which is easy to access;

- low language skills;

- technical situation with absence of necessary equipment in some organisations;

- no storing of information available.

Effects:

- Low priority of alcohol, tobacco and drug prevention in public agenda. As a result public money is not allocated for the prevention activities and they depend on external sources.

- Low efficiency of work with mass-media, authorities, politicians and general public.

- Low level of information materials issued by the organisations. Such materials are not very interesting and sometimes can be issued only with external support.

- Expensive seminars are needed for the exchange of information. Substantial resources are spent annually for travel, accommodation and meals for limited number of representatives of the organisations while they bring rather limited information from such events.

- Doubling of methodical manuals.

- Legislative decisions are frequently lost because of absence of timely access to the necessary information.

- Impossibility of full-scale co-operation with governmental and other organisations.

2.3 Information system creation demands resources, which are not available for the NGOs, and the governmental bodies in the involved countries have different priorities. The involved organisations are ready to use and support the working information system and most of them have necessary equipment. But none of them have own resources to make all preparatory work and to develop an information system, which can be used by all organisations. Creation of such an information system is supposed to enforce the work of development agency itself.

3. ANALYSIS OF OBJECTIVES

3.1 Developmental goal of the project.

Higher priority of alcohol, drug and tobacco prevention in public agenda of East European countries.

3.2 Project objective

Establishment of information system in Russian on alcohol, drugs and tobacco prevention for organisations in East European countries

3.3 The expected effects can be:

- Higher priority of alcohol, tobacco and drug prevention in public agenda and higher possibility of allocating public resources for projects in this field;

- More comprehensive legislation on regional and national levels;

- Higher efficiency of preventive measures through creation of more up-to-date methodical materials;

- Improvement of interaction between the NGOs and state structures through better information about each other;

- Facilitation of work with mass media;

- Higher level of co-operation with public and voluntary organisations, which are interested in useful information;

- Higher level of involvement of ordinary members into NGOs activities because they can get much more information;

- Higher level of NGOs informational materials that gives more chances for financial support from local sources;

- Issue of methodical and other materials that will be used in all involved countries;

- Joint issue of some materials and division of responsibility for preparation of series of some materials between different organisations for common use.

Each participant of the project (active and passive) becomes more powerful, effective and independent in its activities because they can base their work on comprehensive information.

3.4 Information is essential for every kind of activities made in the sector of alcohol, drugs and tobacco prevention. The project will co-operate with other providers of information, such as WHO and other UN agencies, international and national information systems. At present there are no comprehensive information system in Russian on alcohol, tobacco and drug prevention and project can receive support of various organisations interested in such system.

3.5 The activities are supposed to lead to further results:

a. Collection of existing materials (in computer files) in Russian.

b. System of collection of relevant fresh materials in Russian

c. Convenient operating information system that consists of the following elements:

Events database

Financial sources for NGOs

Existing projects database

Organisations database

Publications database

Database of materials on education, policy etc.

Users help system

d. Service system for requests from participants of the project

e. Trained users of the system

f. Monthly electronic newsletter in Russian

3.7 The existing of the above mentioned elements will lead to the information system functioning as a whole.

4. RISK AND EXTERNAL FACTORS

4.1. Possible conflicts of interests.

The main risk factor is willingness of the project participants to supply and receive information through the system. If some organisations do not have or do not need information materials they can try to hide this by formal complaints. Interest to such system was clearly expressed by all mentioned organisations at several meetings and start of the project reveals who really want to develop activities on modern basis and who just declare it.

Another risk factors between participants are tension on what organisation should be a centre of the network. It seems that ADIC-Ukraine is a good choice because:

a. At present ADIC-Ukraine has more computer information in Russian than any other involved organisation;

b. ADIC-Ukraine has good reputation in the WHO, UNDCP and other international organisations;

c. ADIC-Ukraine has good experience of using information from other countries for legislative, educational and other activities;

d. Ukraine is good country for information system in Russian because Ukraine is a member of CIS and at the same time ADIC-Ukraine central position in the project cannot be considered as an old empire expansion as it could happen in case the centre is situated in Russia.

4.2. External risks

Alcohol and tobacco industries have clear interest to develop their own system of information on alcohol and tobacco prevention which could not hurt their vested interests. They will try to make the information system less effective and can use information from the system for their interests. To overcome this obstacle all organisations and individuals willing to join the system should clearly declare that they receive no financial or other support from the industries.

4.3. Decisive factors and preconditions

The co-operation between involved organisations is an important decisive factor for the project. At the preparatory stage preliminary agreement should be worked out and signed by the organisations. Existence of such document should be a pre-condition for final decision to finance project by donor. This document can be prepared during the IOGT World Congress in August.

4.4. Negative side-effects

As a result of project implementation some organisations can pay much more attention to information activities and less to other kinds of their activities that can suffer in this case.

Some organisations can use the system just for collecting and storage of information but not for prevention activities.

To overcome this obstacle quarterly reports should be collected on using the information from the system for the organisation's activities.

4.5. Alternative strategies to reach planned project objective could be:

a. use Internet

b. use WHO or other database

c. exchange information on bi-literal basis without external support

a. Information in Internet is very useful but it is mostly in English and is very expensive for most involved organisations, especially in case of making own homepage.

b. WHO data base

- is available only for some organisations;

- disseminates only the WHO information;

- does not accept information from other sources.

The number of the WHO materials in Russian are limited and almost all of them are in possession of the ADIC-Ukraine.

c. Experience show that bi-literal agreements without proper mechanisms and channels of information exchange do not work. Some organisations should take clear responsibility for information system functioning.

5. PROJECT ORGANISATION AND IMPLEMENTATION.

5.1. Resources

ADIC-Ukraine has several specialists that work with computer information in its staff. Each involved organisation should appoint one person with basic computer skills as responsible for co-operation within the information network.

External financial resources will be used mainly for developing the information system and training the users. Most of equipment and other resources, needed for routine work of the operating system, will be provided by involved organisations, while ADIC-Ukraine needs additional computer to implement the project.

5.2. Organisational, institutional and administrative skills and capacities

ADIC-Ukraine has large experience of administrative and organisational work. Dr. Konstantin Krasovsky worked as a consultant of the WHO Regional office for Europe and has relevant skills. Dr. Tatiana Andreeva worked as a director of Addiction Prevention Centre Choice in Kazan, Russia, and has needed administrative skills.

5.3. Division of roles and responsibilities

Project director of ADIC-Ukraine Dr. Tatiana Andreeva will be a system administrator as a part-time (half of the working day) worker of the project. She will be responsible for collection of information, creating technology of information systematisation, new information processing, request processing.

ADIC director Dr.Krasovsky will be supervisor of the project and editor of the monthly electronic newsletter on non-paid basis.

The above mentioned four persons will be authors of the user's manual and lecturers at the planned seminars.

Translations will be made according to decisions of the majority of participants. Any involved organisations can get funds for translation if the majority of active participants agree that the material is really needed for all of them and translators have needed skills.

5.4. Training of the target group

Two seminars are planned during the project period.

Operators from the all involved organisations come to Kiev for the first 3 days to receive basic information and skills to use the system and to reach agreement on its main elements.

Another 3-days seminar is planned in Kiev mainly for representatives of organisations that join the system during the project implementation and for new operators from the founder organisations.

Permanent educating will be provided by e-mail during the project implementation.

The user's manual will be prepared and issued in printed and electronic version, which will be available for all participants of the system.

5.5. Other projects in the same sector

Intentions to establish information system of alcohol, drugs and tobacco were expressed permanently at some relevant events. Lack of human, financial and material resources make the establishment of such system at present by other organisations impossible. If any organisation takes responsibility to establish such a system then other public and voluntary organisations from the sector have to cooperate with this organisation. So it is very important to be pioneer in an information process. Otherwise the NGO have to use information system which is under strong influence of some national government or even alcohol and tobacco industry.

Time schedule

5.6. The project is planned for 1999.

The collection of materials and their systematisation starts in January and continues during all project period.

First monthly newsletter will be issued in February.

First seminar is planned for February-March, second - for October-November.

It is planned that all elements of the system start to work in June-July.

User's manual will be issued in August.

Translations will be made during all project period.

5.7. During the second half-year special activities will be undertaken to ensure the information system can work without external support.

6. ANALYSIS OF PRECONDITIONS FOR ECONOMICALLY SOUND AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

6.1. Policy and legislation to back up the project

In many countries involved National programs on alcohol, tobacco and drug policy exist. While all of them are not implemented in a full scale they declare needs in information system development.

Intergovernmental agreements on alcohol, drugs and tobacco stress the need to develop strategy of dissemination of information. For example, the European Alcohol Action Plan states: "One aim of the Action Plan should be to increase the priority given to Member States in information and education appropriate to different cultures and settings... Provisions needs to be made to establish an information and education centre, through which access to various kinds of materials can be provided".

There are no legislative restrictions on dissemination of information by e-mail in all involved countries.

6.2. When information system operates it does not need substantial resources to keep it operating. If the involved organisations will have some specific needs they will pay to ADIC-Ukraine for services not included in basis agreement.

6.3. It was impossible to dream about such electronic information system in East European countries 5 years ago. The technological level continues to change dramatically but the project system stays one step ahead of prevailing information conditions in the East European countries. This makes it useful in future because it also contains potential for development.

 PROJECT MATRIX