Summary:
- The World Bank is committed to preventing discrimination against gay and transgender Ugandans in its programs before resuming new funding
- Project documents will explicitly state that LGBTQ Ugandans should not experience discrimination, and staff members will not face arrest for including them.
- As of the close of 2022, the World Bank’s collection of projects in the East African nation stood at $5.2 billion.
The World Bank is committed to preventing discrimination against gay and transgender Ugandans in its programs before resuming new funding, which had been suspended in August due to an anti-LGBTQ law, as stated by a bank executive.
According to Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank’s Regional Vice President for the East and Southern Africa region, project documents will explicitly state that LGBTQ Ugandans should not experience discrimination, and staff members will not face arrest for including them.
Rights groups have expressed concern that the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), passed in May and containing provisions for the death penalty in certain cases of same-sex activities, has led to a surge of mistreatment against LGBTQ individuals, mostly by private individuals, Reuters reported.
“We’re doing all this to clarify this is not what you should be doing in World Bank-financed projects and to say you are allowed to do it the right way and you will not be arrested,” Kwakwa said, on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s annual meetings in Marrakech, Morocco
She declined to give a timeline for assessing the measures’ efficacy and moving to a decision on whether to resume new funding for Uganda.
“We have discussed this at length with the government. Government is comfortable with that,” Kwakwa said.
Ugandan officials had accused the World Bank of double standards when it suspended new funding, arguing that the institution was providing loans to nations in the Middle East and Asia with similar or even more stringent laws targeting LGBTQ individuals.
In a bold and unyielding stance in August, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni fired back at the World Bank’s decision to freeze loans to the nation following the enactment of Uganda’s controversial anti-LGBTQ law.
Declaring the nation’s self-sufficiency from external financial support, President Museveni tweeted, “Uganda will develop with or without loans,” echoing the sentiment that the nation’s progress is undeterred by such a suspension.
At the time, a junior finance minister had indicated that the government would need to adjust its budget to account for the potential financial repercussions of the suspension.
As of the close of 2022, the World Bank’s collection of projects in the East African nation stood at $5.2 billion. This suspension of new financing does not impact the existing projects in Uganda.
