MARRAKECH - The World Bank will aim to ensure that Ugandans that are part of the LGBTQ community do not face discrimination in its programs before resuming new funding, which was halted in August over an anti-LGBTQ law, a bank executive said.
World Bank project documents will make it clear that Ugandans that are part of the LGBTQ community will not face discrimination and that staff will not be arrested for including them, Victoria Kwakwa, the bank's head for eastern and southern Africa said.
Rights groups have said that the Anti-Homosexuality Act, AHA, which was enacted in May and prescribes the death penalty
for certain same-sex acts, has unleashed a torrent of abuse
against members of the LGBTQ community.
"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 be not be arrested,"
Kwakwa said, on the sidelines of the World Bank and
International Monetary Fund's annual meetings in Marrakech,
Morocco.
Kwakwa 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 government.
Government is comfortable with that," the World Bank official said.
When the World Bank suspended new funding, Ugandan officials
accused the development finance institution of hypocrisy, arguing that
it was lending to countries in the Middle East and Asia that
have the same or harsher laws targeting LGBTQ people.
Speaking after the World Bank decided to suspend its funding to Uganda, a junior finance minister in the nation said Kampala would need to revise its budget to reflect the impact.
The World Bank's portfolio of projects in the East African
country was $5.2 billion at the end of 2022. These have not been
affected by the decision to suspend new financing.