In the spring of 2006 the UNDP Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific commissioned three independent teams to evaluate the Second Regional Cooperation Framework for Asia and the Pacific (RCF II). The duration of RCF II from 2002 to 2006 was nearing completion and one of the purposes of the evaluation was to inform the planning and design of the next Regional Cooperation Framework. The wider evaluation considers three intended outcomes of RCF II. The evaluation indicates that responses to the epidemic conducted within RCF II have been highly variable in terms of management and partnership strategies, outputs, achievements and sustainability as assessed from the five field visits and documentation review. This has been largely due to individual differences in project management practices and personal issues that the institutional structure failed to address and mitigate, combined with reductions in budgeted project funding. The overall approaches of UNDP to planning and implementing multi-sectoral strategies to limit the spread of HIV/AIDS, mitigating its socio-economic impacts, and strengthening institutional capacity towards this outcome have addressed the gap in the knowledge base and multi-sectoral responses to the epidemic in the region. Projects assessed appear to have been effective in placing HIV vulnerability on the wider development agenda and moving responses beyond the confines of the health sector. Given the importance of regional economic gradients and the reliance of substantial numbers of people on migration to support their livelihoods, cross-border mobility is a crucial yet neglected factor driving the epidemic in the region. This is further compounded as many unofficial and unregistered migrants are marginalised from information and medical services of their receiving countries and "fall through the safety nets" available to nationals working within their own countries.