Amnesty urges World Bank to push Uganda to repeal anti-gay law

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni speaks with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic at the Serbia Palace in Belgrade, Serbia, Sunday, July 30, 2023. Museveni is in Serbia for three-days official visit. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Amnesty International said Tuesday that the resumption of World Bank funding to Uganda, cut after the country implemented a strict anti-gay law, was an opportunity for the agency to push Kampala into repealing the legislation.

Uganda’s Anti-Homosexuality Act is one of the most severe in the world, with harsh sentences for same-sex relations or “promoting” homosexuality, including the death penalty in some cases.

After longtime President Yoweri Museveni signed it into law in May 2023, the World Bank halted all new loans to Uganda, saying projects it financed had to adhere to its non-discriminatory policies.

But on Monday, a Uganda finance ministry official said in a statement that the country would receive $2 billion from the World Bank, distributed over three financial years.

The World Bank has not commented.

Roland Ebole, a Uganda and Tanzania researcher at Amnesty International, told AFP that while the NGO did not make calls for conditions on aid, it believed the resumption of World Bank funds presented an opportunity.

“What we are saying is that now that they are reinstating the funding, can they then also push that discriminatory practices... should basically be stopped,” he said.

He said the “powerful” World Bank was in a position to push “to make sure that no government agenda, no government programmes, actually discriminate against the LGBTQI community”.

A spokesperson for British charity Open for Business, which promotes economic inclusion and diversity, said it was “disappointed” by the decision “as we know this goes against the ask of civil society”.

It follows the World Bank saying in June that it would resume lending to the country.

A spokesperson told AFP at the time that it “cannot deliver on its mission to end poverty and boost shared prosperity on a liveable planet unless all people can participate in, and benefit from, the projects we finance”.

Uganda has lost an estimated $586 million to $2.4 billion a year because of the anti-LGBTQ law, notably because of frozen financing, Open for Business said last year.