The authors of this commentary, published in a special supplement of the journal Global Health: Science and Practice, write that voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) programmes in eastern and southern Africa need to plan for sustainability and conduct transition assessments early on. They define a sustainable VMMC programme as one whose local stakeholders maintain a high prevalence of circumcision after the initial scale-up, generally by incorporating either early infant male circumcision, early adolescent VMMC, or both, into routine newborn and adolescent service delivery systems.