In response to Uganda’s approval of the Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023, a piece of legislation that aims to exterminate LGBTQ persons, Ugandan LGBTQ advocates have urged the World Bank to halt all existing and future loan payments to the Ugandan government. Outright International supports their request. Health, education, housing, employment, and economic infrastructure projects are among the government-sponsored initiatives that are supported by World Bank funding to reduce poverty.
By requiring discrimination against LGBTQ individuals in all spheres of Uganda’s economy, the new law undercuts these initiatives.
LGBTQ persons in Uganda face exclusion, incarceration, and execution under the Anti-Homosexuality Act only for requesting services from World Bank-funded projects. According to Ugandan law, everyone who has a reasonable suspicion that someone is «promoting» or committing the «offence of homosexuality» or that any organisation is «normalising» homosexuality «shall report the matter to police for appropriate action» This mandate is applicable to everyone working on World Bank initiatives. Any attempt by a member of the LGBTQ community to utilise the services or advantages of these projects runs the danger of legal action and punishment under the act. The range of punishments for homosexual offences is from twenty years to the death penalty.
The law also prevents LGBTQ individuals from having access to basic necessities. All landlords must evict LGBTQ residents, including those in housing programmes supported by the World Bank. It is against the law for doctors, nurses, and educators working for the government to give advice, affirming care, or social assistance. LGBTQ persons are prohibited from applying for specific jobs. Outright has referred to the law’s goal to exterminate LGBTQ persons as being steeped in genocidal philosophy.
«There is no way around it: World Bank staff are now required by law to be complicit in the persecution of queer Ugandans», said Maria Sjödin, executive director of Outright International. «Worse, World Bank-financed programs will now contribute to poverty among LGBTQ Ugandans, not alleviate it, as the law excludes people from the benefits of development on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity».
The Ugandan government now receives multiyear financing from the World Bank in the amount of $5.5 billion, with a total annual expenditure budget of $13 billion. According to World Bank policy, funded initiatives must disperse benefits fairly, without favouring weaker groups. Advocates for Uganda have requested that the World Bank stop making loan payments in order to follow its own rules. The World Bank has being urged by Outright International to forbid any of its employees from filing police reports on others. The World Bank has only recently issued a brief statement of concern in reaction to the worst anti-LGBTQ law in the world.
When former World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim spoke out against discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, the World Bank was clear about the significance of including LGBTQ people in efforts to combat poverty. He emphasised «how crucial it is to fight prejudice and knock down barriers to education, jobs, social protection, and good health faced by many people in the LGBTI community». Additionally, due to state-sponsored discrimination and persecution of LGBTQ people in Tanzania, the World Bank discontinued all of its visitation trips there in 2017.
«The World Bank should be a source of dignity, not danger», said Ugandan human rights defender Kasha Nabagesera. «Queer people are going into hiding and fleeing Uganda to avoid the threat posed by the Ugandan government, much of which is financed by the World Bank».
