World Bank UNTURN is completing a Uganda loan ban over gay rights

The World Bank says it is banning loans in Uganda, which introduced two years ago when the country passed a new law against LGBTQ people.

In 2023, Uganda voted in some of the world’s harshest anti-homosexual legislation, which means that everyone participates in some same -sex actions may be sentenced to death.

Since then, hundreds of people have been expelled from their homes, abused or arrested for their sexuality, according to the forum of awareness and promotion of Uganda human rights.

But the World Bank says it is confident that new “mitigation measures” will allow it to introduce funding in such a way that it does not harm or discriminate against LGBTQ people.

The BBC has asked the government of Uganda and the World Bank for further comment.

“The World Bank cannot fulfill its mission to end the poverty and strengthen shared prosperity on a living planet, unless all people can participate and take advantage of the projects we are financing,” said AFP news agency spokesman on Thursday and the organization has “worked with (uganda) of the government and They try “anti-spreading.

New projects have been approved in Social Protection, Education and Forced displacement and refugees, a spokesman for an unnamed World Bank told the Reuters news agency.

Analysts say the World Bank is one of the largest sources of Uganda’s external funding, playing an important role in the development of infrastructure. Road superstructures and advanced access to electricity are Among the projects that the organization supports in the Eastern African country.

But some economists criticize the funding model used by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund as a whole, saying that it immortalizes the dependency and undermines the sustainable growth of the most, the world, binding them to limiting conditions for a loan.

Uganda is among several African countries – including Ghane and Kenya – That in recent years have witnessed moves to limit the rights of LGBTQ people.

The news of the Dracon Act on anti -homosexuality in Uganda in 2023 caused international condemnation.

It costs the country somewhere between $ 470 million and $ 1.7 billion ($ 347 million and $ 1.2 billion) in the year that followed, mainly because of frozen funding, According to charity estimates based in the UK, open to businessS

The Uganda government says its anti-gay law reflects the conservative values ​​of its people, but critics tell him that the law is a little more than a distraction from real issues such as high unemployment and Continuing attacks against oppositionS

“This is a low hanging fruit”, oryem nyeko, a researcher who works at Human Rights Watch in Uganda, At that time he told CBCS

“He is framed as something that is alien and threatens for people’s children.”

Victims of beatings, expulsions And more, he says that Uganda’s new law has strengthened people to attack them on the basis of their perceived sexuality.

The fact that the law also provides for a 20-year sentence for “promoting” homosexuality is also considered as an attack on anyone who defends LGBTQ’s rights, but the government denies it.