The World Bank said it is lifting a loan ban that passed a tough new law against the LGBTQ people two years ago.
In 2023, Uganda voted to pass the world's toughest anti-gay legislation, which means anyone engaged in certain same-sex behaviors can be sentenced to death.
Since then, hundreds of people have been expelled from their homes, suffered violence or arrested for sexual acts, according to the Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum in Uganda.
But the World Bank said the new “missile measures” would allow it to launch funds in a way that does not harm or discriminate against the LGBTQ people.
The BBC has asked the Uganda government and the World Bank to comment further.
“Unless everyone can participate in the projects we fund, the World Bank cannot achieve its mission to eradicate poverty and promote shared prosperity on a habitable planet,” a spokesperson told AFP on Thursday. [Ugandan] The government and other stakeholders introduced the implementation and testing of “anti-discrimination measures”.
A World Bank spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that a new project for “social protection, education and forced displacement and refugees” has also been approved.
Analysts say the World Bank is one of Uganda's largest sources of external financing and plays an important role in infrastructure development. One of the projects the organization supports in East African countries is road upgrades and expanded access to electricity.
However, some economists criticized the funding model used by the World Bank and the IMF in general, saying it permanentizes dependencies and undermines sustainable growth in the world’s poorest countries by binding them to restricted lending conditions.
Uganda is one of several African countries, including Ghana and Kenya – in recent years, Uganda has witnessed a move to reduce the rights of people in LGBTQ.
Uganda's Strict Anti-Hosexual Act raised international condemnation in 2023.
According to estimates from the opening of the UK charity, the country lost between $470 million and $1.7 billion (£347 million and £1.2 billion) of the country, mainly due to frozen financing.
Uganda's government said its anti-gay law reflects conservative values of its people, but its critics say the law is nothing more than dispersing practical issues such as high unemployment and ongoing attacks on the opposition.
“It's a low-key fruit,” Oryem Nyeko, a researcher who worked at Uganda's human rights observer at the time, told the CBC at the time.
“It is framed as foreigners and threatens people’s children.”
Fighting, expulsion and worse victims say new Uganda laws have made people dare to attack them based on their sexual behavior.
The law also provides that the fact that a 20-year prison sentence for “promoting” homosexuality is also considered an attack on anyone defending LGBTQ rights, but the government denied that.
Uganda’s information minister claimed “privately but not promote” homosexuality was allowed, told AFP on Thursday that the law did not “target or discriminate against anyone.”
Chris Baryomunsi also said the World Bank ban on loans to Uganda two years ago was “at a loss” but welcomed changes to the organization.
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