This document is a response to a call from the international community for UNFPA to take the lead in ensuring reproductive health commodity security (RHCS). It outlines the scope of the issue, identifies required actions at both the global and country levels to ensure RHCS, and proposes specific roles for various partners, from developing country governments to NGOs and the private sector. It also projects contraceptive costs, shortfalls and consequences.

This report documents some of the efforts that have been made, the major issues that still need to be tackled, and what partnerships at various levels can do to improve African responses to HIV/AIDS. publication of this report.

Prevention. This is a central objective of UNFPA in the global fight against HIV/AIDS. Among the many complex issues compounding the pandemic, prevention is the challenge that fits the agency best. For more than 30 years, UNFPA has supported a highly focused agenda to improve reproductive and sexual health.

New guidelines on the construction of core indicators provide technical guidance on how to measure the indicators for implementating the Declaration adopted at the UN Special Session on HIV/AIDS in June 2001.

A report from the consultative meeting held in Bratislava, Slovakia, on 13-15 November 2001. The purpose of the meeting was twofold: first, to examine and explore the impact of armed conflict on women and girls; and, second, to formulate strategies and tools to ensure that reproductive health programmes accurately reflect this population's needs, specifically by addressing them through a comprehensive, gender-sensitive approach.

This document is designed to provide an overview of the issues of HIV/AIDS, challenges, and opportunities around integrating a broad range of HIV/AIDS interventions into existing reproductive and sexual health programs and services, and to provide some practical examples of interventions that have been successful.