This paper intends to help understand what made the difference in Asia and the Pacific for increased attention to MSM and HIV. There is wide agreement in the region that two processes, one sub-regional and one region-wide, have provided a framework and context which both strengthened MSM advocacy for improving the response to HIV and allowed most national governments in the region to support – or at least not to oppose or suppress – the development of HIV programmes for MSM. The two processes culminated in the creation of, respectively, the Purple Sky Network, a coordination effort for MSM and HIV interventions in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), and the Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health (APCOM). The contributions by these two processes to the scale up of HIV interventions and the work needed to achieve it are referred to in this paper as “the Asia Pacific Experience”.
