Due to Uganda’s enactment earlier this year of a globally castigated bill outlawing same-sex activity, the World Bank has suspended permission for new financing for government projects in the African nation.
The World Bank Group said in a statement on Tuesday that the country’s Anti-Homosexuality Act profoundly goes against its values. It also added that no fresh public funding proposals would be submitted to its board of directors for authorization currently.
The action was taken in response to demands from human rights organizations and US Congressmen to take a more aggressive stance against Kampala over the law, which is regarded as among the worst of its kind in the entire world.
The Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 in Uganda contains measures that make aggravating homosexual behavior a grave offense and impose fines for consenting to same-sex relationships up to life imprisonment.
The World Bank stated that its aim is to safeguard sexual and gender minorities from prejudice and exclusion in the initiatives that it finances and that it was in talks with the Ugandan government on the subject.
Ajay Banga, the World Bank president, was urged by a number of US Congressmen to promptly suspend all future and ongoing financing to Uganda until the statute was overturned at the close of July.
After the measure passed, the US State Department revised its travel advice, advising individuals to reconsider traveling to Uganda in light of criminal activity, terrorist threats, and anti-LGBTQI+ laws.
