diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index 9c3965e79e3..0395802220b 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -10,6 +10,9 @@
 #   make deb-src -------------- produce a DEB source
 #   make deb ------------------ produce a DEB
 #   make docs ----------------- rebuild the manpages (results are checked in)
+#   make gettext -------------- produce POT files for docs
+#   make generate-po ---------- generate language specfic po file
+#   make needs-translation ---- generate list of file with unstranlated or fuzzy string for a specific language
 #   make tests ---------------- run the tests (see https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/devel/dev_guide/testing_units.html for requirements)
 
 ########################################################
@@ -58,6 +61,9 @@ DATE := $(shell date --utc --date="$(GIT_DATE)" +%Y%m%d%H%M)
 CPUS ?= $(shell nproc)
 endif
 
+# Intenationalisation and Localisation
+LANGUAGES ?=
+
 # DEB build parameters
 DEBUILD_BIN ?= debuild
 DEBUILD_OPTS = --source-option="-I"
@@ -275,6 +281,18 @@ webdocs:
 coredocs:
 	(cd docs/docsite/; CPUS=$(CPUS) $(MAKE) coredocs)
 
+.PHONY: gettext
+gettext:
+	(cd docs/docsite/; CPUS=$(CPUS) $(MAKE) gettext)
+
+.PHONY: generate-po
+generate-po:
+	(cd docs/docsite/; CPUS=$(CPUS) LANGUAGES=$(LANGUAGES) $(MAKE) generate-po)
+
+.PHONY: needs-translation
+needs-translation:
+	(cd docs/docsite/; CPUS=$(CPUS) LANGUAGES=$(LANGUAGES) $(MAKE) needs-translation)
+
 .PHONY: linkcheckdocs
 linkcheckdocs:
 	(cd docs/docsite/; CPUS=$(CPUS) $(MAKE) linkcheckdocs)
diff --git a/docs/docsite/Makefile b/docs/docsite/Makefile
index 872243593c6..9423316716a 100644
--- a/docs/docsite/Makefile
+++ b/docs/docsite/Makefile
@@ -12,11 +12,18 @@ else
 CPUS ?= $(shell nproc)
 endif
 
+# Intenationalisation and Localisation
+LANGUAGES ?=
+
 # Sets the build output directory for the main docsite if it's not already specified
 ifndef BUILDDIR
 	BUILDDIR = _build
 endif
 
+ifndef POTDIR
+	POTDIR = $(BUILDDIR)/gettext
+endif
+
 # Backwards compat for separate VARS
 PLUGIN_ARGS=
 ifdef MODULES
@@ -64,6 +71,10 @@ coredocs: core_htmldocs
 generate_rst: collections_meta config cli keywords plugins testing
 core_generate_rst: collections_meta config cli keywords base_plugins testing
 
+# At the moment localizing the plugins and collections is not required for the ongoing
+# localisation effort. It will come at a later time.
+gettext_generate_rst: collections_meta config cli keywords testing
+
 # The following two symlinks are necessary to produce two different docsets
 # from the same set of rst files (Ansible the package docs, and core docs).
 # Symlink the relevant index into place for building Ansible docs
@@ -86,6 +97,32 @@ core_structure: core_generate_rst
 	-ln -sf ../rst/core_index.rst rst/index.rst
 	-ln -sf ../sphinx_conf/core_conf.py rst/conf.py
 
+# Symlink the relevant index into place for building core docs
+gettext_structure: gettext_generate_rst
+	@echo "Creating symlinks in gettext_generate_rst"
+	-ln -sf ../rst/core_index.rst rst/index.rst
+	-ln -sf ../sphinx_conf/all_conf.py rst/conf.py
+
+gettext: gettext_structure
+	CPUS=$(CPUS) $(MAKE) -f Makefile.sphinx gettext
+	# if msgcat is installed handle all indexes, otherwise use the index from gettext_structure.
+	-msgcat "$(POTDIR)/core_index.pot" "$(POTDIR)/ansible_index.pot" "$(POTDIR)/2.10_index.pot" > "$(POTDIR)/tmp_index.pot" && mv "$(POTDIR)/tmp_index.pot" "$(POTDIR)/index.pot"
+	rm "$(POTDIR)/core_index.pot" "$(POTDIR)/ansible_index.pot" "$(POTDIR)/2.10_index.pot"
+
+generate-po:
+ifeq ($(LANGUAGES),)
+	@echo 'LANGUAGES is not defined. It is mandatory. LANGUAGES should be a comma separated list of languages to support. (Exampe: fr,es)'
+else
+	(cd docs/docsite/; sphinx-intl update -w 0 -d rst/locales -p "$(POTDIR)" -l $(LANGUAGES))
+endif
+
+needs-translation:
+ifeq ($(LANGUAGES),)
+	@echo 'LANGUAGES is not defined. It is mandatory. LANGUAGES should be a comma separated list of languages to support. (Exampe: fr,es)'
+else
+	(cd docs/docsite/; sphinx-intl stat -d rst/locales -l $(LANGUAGES) | grep -E ' [1-9][0-9]* (fuzzy|untranslated)' | sort)
+endif
+
 htmldocs: ansible_structure
 	CPUS=$(CPUS) $(MAKE) -f Makefile.sphinx html
 
diff --git a/docs/docsite/Makefile.sphinx b/docs/docsite/Makefile.sphinx
index c05e3c3e82e..3bae705c6db 100644
--- a/docs/docsite/Makefile.sphinx
+++ b/docs/docsite/Makefile.sphinx
@@ -3,7 +3,8 @@
 
 # You can set these variables from the command line.
 SPHINXCONFDIR = rst
-SPHINXOPTS    = -j $(CPUS) -n -w rst_warnings -c "$(SPHINXCONFDIR)"
+LANGOPTS      ?=
+SPHINXOPTS    ?= -j $(CPUS) -n -w rst_warnings -c "$(SPHINXCONFDIR)" $(LANGOPTS)
 SPHINXBUILD   = sphinx-build
 SPHINXPROJ    = sdfsdf
 SOURCEDIR     = rst
diff --git a/docs/docsite/requirements.txt b/docs/docsite/requirements.txt
index 0b8ecd60b32..7e2ee220721 100644
--- a/docs/docsite/requirements.txt
+++ b/docs/docsite/requirements.txt
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ PyYAML
 rstcheck
 sphinx==2.1.2
 sphinx-notfound-page >= 0.6
+sphinx-intl
+resolvelib
 Pygments >= 2.4.0
 straight.plugin # Needed for hacking/build-ansible.py which is the backend build script
 antsibull >= 0.25.0
diff --git a/docs/docsite/sphinx_conf/all_conf.py b/docs/docsite/sphinx_conf/all_conf.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..a53b49ba9ad
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/docsite/sphinx_conf/all_conf.py
@@ -0,0 +1,296 @@
+# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
+#
+# documentation build configuration file, created by
+# sphinx-quickstart on Sat Sep 27 13:23:22 2008-2009.
+#
+# This file is execfile()d with the current directory set to its
+# containing dir.
+#
+# The contents of this file are pickled, so don't put values in the namespace
+# that aren't pickleable (module imports are okay, they're removed
+# automatically).
+#
+# All configuration values have a default value; values that are commented out
+# serve to show the default value.
+
+from __future__ import (absolute_import, division, print_function)
+__metaclass__ = type
+
+import sys
+import os
+
+# pip install sphinx_rtd_theme
+# import sphinx_rtd_theme
+# html_theme_path = [sphinx_rtd_theme.get_html_theme_path()]
+
+# If your extensions are in another directory, add it here. If the directory
+# is relative to the documentation root, use os.path.abspath to make it
+# absolute, like shown here.
+# sys.path.append(os.path.abspath('some/directory'))
+#
+sys.path.insert(0, os.path.join('ansible', 'lib'))
+sys.path.append(os.path.abspath(os.path.join('..', '_extensions')))
+
+# We want sphinx to document the ansible modules contained in this repository,
+# not those that may happen to be installed in the version
+# of Python used to run sphinx.  When sphinx loads in order to document,
+# the repository version needs to be the one that is loaded:
+sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath(os.path.join('..', '..', '..', 'lib')))
+
+VERSION = 'devel'
+AUTHOR = 'Ansible, Inc'
+
+
+# General configuration
+# ---------------------
+
+# Add any Sphinx extension module names here, as strings.
+# They can be extensions
+# coming with Sphinx (named 'sphinx.ext.*') or your custom ones.
+# TEST: 'sphinxcontrib.fulltoc'
+extensions = ['sphinx.ext.autodoc', 'sphinx.ext.intersphinx', 'pygments_lexer', 'notfound.extension']
+
+# Later on, add 'sphinx.ext.viewcode' to the list if you want to have
+# colorized code generated too for references.
+
+
+# Add any paths that contain templates here, relative to this directory.
+templates_path = ['.templates']
+
+# The suffix of source filenames.
+source_suffix = '.rst'
+
+# The master toctree document.
+master_doc = 'index'
+
+# General substitutions.
+project = 'Ansible'
+copyright = "2021 Red Hat, Inc."
+
+# The default replacements for |version| and |release|, also used in various
+# other places throughout the built documents.
+#
+# The short X.Y version.
+version = VERSION
+# The full version, including alpha/beta/rc tags.
+release = VERSION
+
+# There are two options for replacing |today|: either, you set today to some
+# non-false value, then it is used:
+# today = ''
+# Else, today_fmt is used as the format for a strftime call.
+today_fmt = '%B %d, %Y'
+
+# List of documents that shouldn't be included in the build.
+# unused_docs = []
+
+# List of directories, relative to source directories, that shouldn't be
+# searched for source files.
+# exclude_dirs = []
+
+# A list of glob-style patterns that should be excluded when looking
+# for source files.
+exclude_patterns = [
+]
+
+# The reST default role (used for this markup: `text`) to use for all
+# documents.
+# default_role = None
+
+# If true, '()' will be appended to :func: etc. cross-reference text.
+# add_function_parentheses = True
+
+# If true, the current module name will be prepended to all description
+# unit titles (such as .. function::).
+# add_module_names = True
+
+# If true, sectionauthor and moduleauthor directives will be shown in the
+# output. They are ignored by default.
+# show_authors = False
+
+# The name of the Pygments (syntax highlighting) style to use.
+pygments_style = 'sphinx'
+
+highlight_language = 'YAML+Jinja'
+
+# Substitutions, variables, entities, & shortcuts for text which do not need to link to anything.
+# For titles which should be a link, use the intersphinx anchors set at the index, chapter, and section levels, such as  qi_start_:
+# |br| is useful for formatting fields inside of tables
+# |_| is a nonbreaking space; similarly useful inside of tables
+rst_epilog = """
+.. |br| raw:: html
+
+   <br>
+.. |_| unicode:: 0xA0
+    :trim:
+"""
+
+
+# Options for HTML output
+# -----------------------
+
+html_theme_path = ['../_themes']
+html_theme = 'sphinx_rtd_theme'
+html_short_title = 'Ansible Core Documentation'
+html_show_sphinx = False
+
+html_theme_options = {
+    'canonical_url': "https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest/",
+    'vcs_pageview_mode': 'edit'
+}
+
+html_context = {
+    'display_github': 'True',
+    'github_user': 'ansible',
+    'github_repo': 'ansible',
+    'github_version': 'devel/docs/docsite/rst/',
+    'github_module_version': 'devel/lib/ansible/modules/',
+    'github_root_dir': 'devel/lib/ansible',
+    'github_cli_version': 'devel/lib/ansible/cli/',
+    'current_version': version,
+    'latest_version': 'devel',
+    # list specifically out of order to make latest work
+    'available_versions': ('devel',),
+    'css_files': ('_static/ansible.css',  # overrides to the standard theme
+                  ),
+}
+
+# The style sheet to use for HTML and HTML Help pages. A file of that name
+# must exist either in Sphinx' static/ path, or in one of the custom paths
+# given in html_static_path.
+# html_style = 'solar.css'
+
+# The name for this set of Sphinx documents.  If None, it defaults to
+# "<project> v<release> documentation".
+html_title = 'Ansible Core Documentation'
+
+# A shorter title for the navigation bar.  Default is the same as html_title.
+# html_short_title = None
+
+# The name of an image file (within the static path) to place at the top of
+# the sidebar.
+# html_logo =
+
+# The name of an image file (within the static path) to use as favicon of the
+# docs.  This file should be a Windows icon file (.ico) being 16x16 or 32x32
+# pixels large.
+# html_favicon = 'favicon.ico'
+
+# Add any paths that contain custom static files (such as style sheets) here,
+# relative to this directory. They are copied after the builtin static files,
+# so a file named "default.css" will overwrite the builtin "default.css".
+html_static_path = ['../_static']
+
+# If not '', a 'Last updated on:' timestamp is inserted at every page bottom,
+# using the given strftime format.
+html_last_updated_fmt = '%b %d, %Y'
+
+# If true, SmartyPants will be used to convert quotes and dashes to
+# typographically correct entities.
+# html_use_smartypants = True
+
+# Custom sidebar templates, maps document names to template names.
+# html_sidebars = {}
+
+# Additional templates that should be rendered to pages, maps page names to
+# template names.
+# html_additional_pages = {}
+
+# If false, no module index is generated.
+# html_use_modindex = True
+
+# If false, no index is generated.
+# html_use_index = True
+
+# If true, the index is split into individual pages for each letter.
+# html_split_index = False
+
+# If true, the reST sources are included in the HTML build as _sources/<name>.
+html_copy_source = False
+
+# If true, an OpenSearch description file will be output, and all pages will
+# contain a <link> tag referring to it.  The value of this option must be the
+# base URL from which the finished HTML is served.
+# html_use_opensearch = 'https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/latest'
+
+# If nonempty, this is the file name suffix for HTML files (e.g. ".xhtml").
+# html_file_suffix = ''
+
+# Output file base name for HTML help builder.
+htmlhelp_basename = 'Poseidodoc'
+
+# Configuration for sphinx-notfound-pages
+# with no 'notfound_template' and no 'notfound_context' set,
+# the extension builds 404.rst into a location-agnostic 404 page
+#
+# default is `en` - using this for the sub-site:
+notfound_default_language = "ansible"
+# default is `latest`:
+# setting explicitly - docsite serves up /ansible/latest/404.html
+# so keep this set to `latest` even on the `devel` branch
+# then no maintenance is needed when we branch a new stable_x.x
+notfound_default_version = "latest"
+# makes default setting explicit:
+notfound_no_urls_prefix = False
+
+# Options for LaTeX output
+# ------------------------
+
+# The paper size ('letter' or 'a4').
+# latex_paper_size = 'letter'
+
+# The font size ('10pt', '11pt' or '12pt').
+# latex_font_size = '10pt'
+
+# Grouping the document tree into LaTeX files. List of tuples
+# (source start file, target name, title, author, document class
+# [howto/manual]).
+latex_documents = [
+    ('index', 'ansible.tex', 'Ansible 2.2 Documentation', AUTHOR, 'manual'),
+]
+
+# The name of an image file (relative to this directory) to place at the top of
+# the title page.
+# latex_logo = None
+
+# For "manual" documents, if this is true, then toplevel headings are parts,
+# not chapters.
+# latex_use_parts = False
+
+# Additional stuff for the LaTeX preamble.
+# latex_preamble = ''
+
+# Documents to append as an appendix to all manuals.
+# latex_appendices = []
+
+# If false, no module index is generated.
+# latex_use_modindex = True
+
+autoclass_content = 'both'
+
+# Note:  Our strategy for intersphinx mappings is to have the upstream build location as the
+# canonical source and then cached copies of the mapping stored locally in case someone is building
+# when disconnected from the internet.  We then have a script to update the cached copies.
+#
+# Because of that, each entry in this mapping should have this format:
+#   name: ('http://UPSTREAM_URL', (None, 'path/to/local/cache.inv'))
+#
+# The update script depends on this format so deviating from this (for instance, adding a third
+# location for the mappning to live) will confuse it.
+intersphinx_mapping = {'python': ('https://docs.python.org/2/', (None, '../python2.inv')),
+                       'python3': ('https://docs.python.org/3/', (None, '../python3.inv')),
+                       'jinja2': ('http://jinja.palletsprojects.com/', (None, '../jinja2.inv')),
+                       'ansible_2_10': ('https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.10/', (None, '../ansible_2_10.inv')),
+                       'ansible_2_9': ('https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.9/', (None, '../ansible_2_9.inv')),
+                       'ansible_2_8': ('https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.8/', (None, '../ansible_2_8.inv')),
+                       'ansible_2_7': ('https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.7/', (None, '../ansible_2_7.inv')),
+                       'ansible_2_6': ('https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.6/', (None, '../ansible_2_6.inv')),
+                       'ansible_2_5': ('https://docs.ansible.com/ansible/2.5/', (None, '../ansible_2_5.inv')),
+                       }
+
+# linckchecker settings
+linkcheck_ignore = [
+    r'http://irc\.freenode\.net',
+]
+linkcheck_workers = 25
+# linkcheck_anchors = False