IIEP and its partner ministries of education launched the collaborative action research programme was launched in 2003. This initiative is designed to contribute to mitigation and prevention of the impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in three countries - Malawi, Tanzania and Uganda. The focus of the research activities is essentially needs assessment. This, in turn, will help to prioritize options for the development of policy, training and other measures to enable the education sector to strengthen its internal capacity in two critical areas. These are to respond to the impact of the epidemic on its staff at all levels and to maintain progress towards EFA goals.Objectives The collaborative action research programme is designed to achieve the following objectives: to identify problems related to the impact of HIV/AIDS on the education sector and to prioritise areas for action; to formulate responses to gaps identified in current policy, leadership practices and management capacities; to develop a database to track patterns and trends in HIV/AIDS-related teacher and student absence, abandonment and mortality; to formulate effective mitigation and prevention measures based on a qualitative assessment of the impact of HIV/AIDS on selected schools and their surrounding communities.