Vice President Dr Mohamed Waheed has today met with Representative for the Regional UNODC Office for South Asia, Ms Cristina Albertin. The meeting was held this afternoon at the President's Office.

Discussions were focused on the strengthening national response to combat drug abuse in the Maldives.

Dr Waheed said that combating drugs issue was one of the key pledges of the government and briefed Ms Albertin on the steps the government was taking to address this issue.

He also noted the important role civil societies could play in this endeavour and said that there were already some very active NGO’s working against drugs. He further added that more NGO's need to come up and said that the government was working on strengthening the civil society.

Ms Albertin agreed that the government alone could not prevent drug abuse and that civil society needed to be mobilised. She also said that law enforcement authorities also have a major role to play in this effort.

She also spoke on the programmes the UNODC was planning for the Maldives.