• The ASCI project has identified a number of important cross-cutting themes. A rounded picture of the relationship between HIV/AIDS, security and conflict will demand attention to all of these. However, to conduct detailed research on each of these will require a level of resources beyond that currently envisioned for ASCI. Early on in the ASCI process, these cross-cutting issues will need to be prioritized.
• Data on the various aspects of HIV/AIDS, security and conflict are scarce and uneven in quality. One of the key exercises in each research cluster is to draw together the data that exist and establish benchmarks for quality, so that the findings of the ASCI research can be tested and validated or disproved in future, when more and better data are available.
• Gender is an important theme in each of the research clusters. Topics that warrant research under this heading include:
  1. Measuring and monitoring the extent of sexual violence in situations associated with the military, conflict and crisis
  2. Modelling the epidemiological impact of sexual violence in these situations on HIV prevalence
  3. Identifying the socio-cultural traits of masculinity that are associated with the military, and with the drivers of HIV prevalence, and in turn examining military policies, programmes and practices relevant to these traits
  4. Tabulating and assessing national (civilian) and military policies on key gender issues.
• Security sector reform provides a framework for addressing a range of concerns relating to the military and post-conflict countries. Existing SSR policies and programmes can be assessed to see the extent to which they have incorporated HIV/AIDS as a concern, and if so, in what ways. Practical recommendations for how to improve OECD/DAC guidelines for SSR, which have been drawn up without reference to HIV/AIDS, can be made. Drawing on the framework of drivers of HIV prevalence and determinants of effective policy, recommendations can be made for how to ensure that SSR policies and programmes are appropriate and effective.
• The securitization of HIV/AIDS in international policy has been a concomitant of increased interest in AIDS as a security issue. Not only has the pandemic been discussed in national security circles, but funds for HIV/AIDS programmes have come, in part, from institutions concerned with security and foreign affairs, rather than development cooperation. An interesting and useful research project consists in plotting these developments, particularly in the U.S. and Europe, over the last decade.
• Media coverage of HIV/AIDS and security demands a special research project. The imagery and language used to present the themes need to be examined, as does the rationale for why these approaches were followed. In turn, this modest piece of research can inform the ASCI publicity and media strategy, advocacy and outreach

Research Projects

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