Coletta Youngers, WOLA Senior Fellow with the International Drug Policy Consortium, is an analyst of international drug policy, human rights and political developments in the Andean Region of South America and of U.S. foreign policy toward the Andes. 

She is co-editor of Drugs and Democracy in Latin America: The Impact of U.S. Policy (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005).  Coletta was the Director of WOLA’s Drug Policy Project from July 2001 to May 2004 and was a Senior Associate at WOLA from June 1987 to June 2003. 

Prior to joining WOLA in 1987, Coletta was a project manager at Catholic Relief Services and on the editorial staff of Latinamerica Press/Noticias Aliadas, both in Lima, Peru.  She holds a Masters in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University. 

Coletta is also the author of a book on the history of WOLA, Thirty Years of Advocacy for Human Rights, Democracy and Social Justice (WOLA, 2005) and on the history of the Peruvian human rights movement, Violencia Política y Sociedad Civil en el Perú:  Historia de la Coordinadora Nacional de Derechos Humanos (Instituto de Estudios Peruanos in Lima, Peru, 2003).  She has published numerous book chapters, reports and articles on the impact of U.S. antinarcotics policy on human rights and democratization in the Andes, among other topics.