The initial effort to develop a set of research tools and accompanying training materials was funded by OSI IHRD as an implementation-oriented contribution to policy activism.   This IHRD project had three goals:

• to develop tools and training materials that could be used in a variety of countries of current interest to OSI
• to perform an initial analysis of existing data from 21 countries of the Former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe focused on the laws, policies and practices related to the dual epidemics of drug use and HIV
• to conduct a training of potential researchers identified by OSI in some of those countries who might take on a full RPAR in their own country at a later time

The RPAR drew on a set of Rapid Assessment and Response (RAR) materials, developed by Stimson, Renton, Fitch and Rhodes, and used by the World Health Organization .  RAR provided a model for general rapid assessment methodology, but did not include a robust section on law, policies and practices of law enforcement agencies.  RPAR was designed to fill this gap.  For more information, see the RAR website.

In addition to the first version of the RPAR tool, the Collaborative produced initial reports describing the available data on 21 countries which were published on the Drug Policy Alliance (U.S.) website at the time of the Barcelona AIDS Conference. OSI identified potential researchers from Hungary, Kazakhstan, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, and Slovenia, who were trained in Budapest in June 2002.
 
Based on the experience of the OSI pilot grant, the team worked with local investigators identified in Russia, Poland, and Ukraine on a five year R01 proposal that was funded by the NIH (NIDA, 2003) for a three city assessment to test and refine the tools and to compare the process and the outcomes of the RPAR across three countries (Rapid Assessment of Drug Law and Policy in the FSU and CEE). In the past two years, new RPAR and RPA projects have been launched in China, Thailand, India and Kazakhstan (see the Current Projects section for more information).

Last Updated: February 2006