"In SHARP Focus at the International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2006)" is an initiative of the Open Society Institute’s Sexual Health and Rights Project (SHARP). Its purpose is to provide information about key sexual health and rights issues, activities, and debates (paying particular attention to those addressing sex workers, men who have sex with men and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons—or, in new terminology "same-sex practicing individuals") as these emerge during AIDS 2006. The scale and scope of the IAC and its Global Village precludes the ability to encompass all activities or disputes, but SHARP aims to give a sense of innovative, pressing, and emerging initiatives and debates.

"In SHARP Focus" is directed toward those attending the conference as well as those who are not. It includes interviews, event reports, analyses, and a schedule of key upcoming events. Five issues were released. The first newsletter provides participants and observers with information about how to follow and/or navigate interesting conference activities by listing key sexual health and rights–related “mapping” efforts designed to guide participants in and through the conference and Global Village. The following three issues were distributed during the conference. A final issue, released immediately following the conference, gives a summary and “round up” of some of the main points of discussion and contention, as well as relevant follow-up plans emerging from the conference.

For more information or to share events, strategies, and activities, please contact Susana T. Fried at susana.fried@gmail.com, Marissa Hildebrant at marissahilde@yahoo.com, or Rachel Thomas, OSI/SHARP, at rthomas@sorosny.org.