At an Inter-agency Symposium on Reproductive Health in Refugee Situations held in Geneva, Switzerland in June 1995, more than 50 governments, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and UN agencies committed themselves to strengthening reproductive health (RH) services to refugees. Following the symposium, an Inter-agency Field Manual on Reproductive Health in Refugee Situations was produced and distributed for field-testing around the world. This 1999 revision of the Field Manual is the result of two years of field use and comprehensive field-testing conducted under the auspices of the Inter-agency Working Group on Reproductive Health in Refugee Situations. More than 100 experienced staff from 50 agencies working in refugee situations in 17 countries applied the Field Manual in their programmes and provided comments and suggestions for improving the content of the publication.