Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 26th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview X. Non-Governmental Organizations in CEE Author(s) Iga Jeziorska Corvinus University of Budapest Budapest Hungary Title Harm Reduction Services in V4: Barriers and Challenges in Effective Service Delivery File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Iga Jeziorska Abstract Aims. Services for people who use drugs actively can still be considered controversial. While needle exchange programs are an important part of national drug strategies in CEE, the states' focus is still to a large extent concentrated on drug-free therapy to tackle the drug abuse problem. Needle exchange services for active drugs users, aiming to increase people’s well-being without forcing them to undertake abstinence-based therapy, are virtually exclusively delivered by non-governmental organisations. Still, NGOs largely rely on the states (legal regulations, policies, financing) and political will, and have to manage the relationships with local communities. This study aims to examine what are the major factors hindering service delivery for active injecting drug users, namely, needle exchange programs. The discovery of such factors can serve as a basis for negotiations between professionals working in the field, reform activists, and the decision makers over improvement of the services, given that such analysis has not yet been conducted in the region. Design and method. The research question of the study is “What are the barriers and challenges in effective service delivery that non-governmental organisations operating low-threshold harm reduction services experience nowadays in Visegrad countries?”. The study covers current situation and involves a comparative case study of 4 cases (Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Czech Republic). The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with services' employees. The data was analysed using MaxQDA software. Results. Comparative analysis shows that in 3 examined countries (Poland, Hungary and Slovakia) organisations encounter very similar problems. Czech case is significantly different, with fewer challenges and lower severity of the ones which do appear. Funding is a major problem, followed by political atmosphere, the incompleteness of the entire support system, local communities' hostility and characteristics of clients being a result of stigmatisation and marginalisation.
