In response to the rapidly increasing HIV/AIDS epidemic and high levels of drug use in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, the regional Harm Reduction Knowledge Hub for Europe and Central Asia is established in the middle of 2004.

The initiative seeks to join efforts aimed at supporting the development of local and regional technical capacities, to organize HIV/AIDS prevention among injecting drug users (IDUs) and provide qualitative regional trainings and technical support in harm reduction.

The trainings are to be structured around nine modules:

• Principles and Practices of Harm Reduction
• Project Management and Evaluation
• HIV Treatment Care for IDUs
• Outreach and Peer Approaches
• Needle-Syringe Programming
• Drug Substitution Treatment
• Harm Reduction in Prisons
• Advocacy
• Sex work

The Harm Reduction Knowledge Hub for Europe and Central Asia with a secretariat in Vilnius is established by an NGOs consortium of AIDS Foundation East-West (AFEW), the Eurasian Harm Reduction Network (formerly Central and Eastern European Harm Reduction Network) and the International Harm Reduction Development Program of the Open Society Institute (IHRD/OSI) in partnership with WHO Regional Office for Europe and with support from the German Agency for Technical Co-operation GTZ.

The Knowledge Hub is part of a synergistic network that includes two similar centers – one focusing on surveillance and the other on HIV/AIDS treatment and care. These hubs are designed to build technical capacity in countries throughout the region as they work to effectively access and utilize grants available to them through the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the World Bank and bilateral projects.