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This toolkit is based on the Guidance Paper issued by UNDG on 19 May 2006, further Guidance Papers that have come out since then, as well as careful support and monitoring by the RST of the extensive experience from countries in establishing Joint Teams and developing Joint Programmes of Support on AIDS over the last two years. The toolkit offers staff of UNAIDS Country Offices and members of Joint UN Teams on AIDS a comprehensive guide for establishing Joint UN Teams with a Joint Programme of Support on AIDS.

This is a new process and one with obvious risks and dangers: that it will generate confusion, that progress will be very slow, that little will be achieved, that it will remain largely an internal compulsion, and perhaps a most serious danger, that it will simply distract and divert attention, focus and resources from the real business of support to national responses. Since it involves major changes in how very large, globally represented agencies, with enormous investments in personnel and systems, function, standards for how the new things are to be done is essential. There is thus need for guidance notes, frameworks, structures and standards and norms previously agreed on which can be followed. Establishing a common understanding of the basic building blocks that need to be in place is essential. This toolkit helps to provide those standards and norms.

This updated version of the toolkit now includes new tools and samples in a number of areas, based on the significant progress made in the region since June 2006. Areas where further guidance, tools, norms and country examples, etc. are now available include: management structures and modalities for Joint UN Teams; domestication of UNAIDS Division of Labor, including generic Terms of reference for UN capacity assessments; tools for HIV prevention programming and capacity building; samples of completed Joint Programme of Support documents, fund management modalities, and RST ESA status reports on progress made on the establishment of Joint UN Teams with one Joint Programme of Support on AIDS in the region.

The toolkit comprises:

A. Key background documents, including official Guidance Papers and the Global Task Team Reports;

B. Status reports and reviews, including the latest RST ESA Status Report on Joint UN Teams and Programmes of Support on AIDS in the region and the report on the review and documentation exercise undertaken in late 2007.

C. Templates and generic presentations, formats and norms for establishing Joint UN Teams including tools for conducting a mapping of UN resources on HIV and AIDS, including SWOT analysis and UN capacity assessments, and letter templates for team members and partners;

D. Templates and generic presentations, formats and norms for developing Joint Programmes of Support on AIDS, including presentations on UN reform and Results-Based Management, Microsoft Excel� templates and databases for Annual Rolling Workplans and review, and sample fund management modalities and joint Programme documents; terms of reference and presentation for inter-agency country review missions on HIV prevention.

E. A new Performance Self-Assessment tool for Joint UN Teams with guides on how to use it; generic agenda and reports for HIV prevention capacity building workshops for heads of UN agencies and members of Joint UN Teams on AIDS.

F. Examples from countries in ESA of various aspects of establishing Joint UN Teams and developing Joint Programmes;

G. Additional tools as they become available.

The 60 resources of the toolkit are organized sequentially, from the background documentation to the main steps that might be required in the establishment of the Joint Teams and the development of Joint Programmes; all are hyperlinked for easy access.

Based on experience in the region, for countries that have not yet completed the process, we recommend that the Joint UN Team holds one or two retreats on UN Country Programming and Joint Programming on HIV and AIDS at an early stage in the process (see Resource C01, the Retreat generic format). The number of retreats largely depends on the stage of preparation of the UNDAF that the country is at. If the UNDAF Results Matrix has not yet been finalized, a specific retreat might be needed to assist with the development of Country Programme Outcomes and Outputs to ensure HIV is appropriately included in the UNDAF.

Compilation of this toolkit would have not been possible without the hard work of our colleagues from the UNAIDS country offices in the region, as well as members of Joint UN Teams on AIDS, who have been struggling with the operationalization of the Secretary General�s directive over the last two years. Many of the tools and instruments presented in this toolkit are a result of our collective �learning by doing� efforts.

This toolkit does not pretend to cover all aspects of the work that need to be done for establishing Joint UN Teams and developing Joint Programmes of Support on AIDS. We do not yet have good examples of Technical Support Plans or Reporting systems or Monitoring and Evaluation Frameworks for the Joint Programme of Support; and there is still a lot of work to be done in establishing the practical details of some fund flow mechanisms. However, as many countries are currently working to finalize these documents, we should be able to share good examples in two or three month time.

This toolkit also does not pretend to show the only way to act on the Secretary General�s directive and the UNDG Guidance Paper. Each country will need to adapt processes and tools available to its specific context. It does, however, present the basic standards and norms which we expect all UCCs to ensure in the establishment of Joint Teams and the development of Joint Programmes.