×

Our award-winning reporting has moved

Context provides news and analysis on three of the world’s most critical issues:

climate change, the impact of technology on society, and inclusive economies.

Global LGBT funding up but worry as bulk goes to North America

by Serena Chaudhry | @SerenaChaudhry | Thomson Reuters Foundation
Wednesday, 25 April 2018 17:52 GMT

Members of the LGBT community demonstrate outside the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago April 12, 2018. REUTERS/Andrea de Silva

Image Caption and Rights Information

The biggest chunk of money - 57 percent - was used to address human rights for LGBT people

By Serena Chaudhry

LONDON, April 25, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Although funding to support sexual minorities is growing, reaching about $250 million in 2016, three-quarters of the money is going to western countries, campaigners said on Wednesday.

More than 500 foundations and governmental agencies gave a total of $524 million to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) causes in 2015 and 2016 combined, almost a quarter more than in the previous two-year period, researchers found.

But LGBT groups received a tiny fraction of international development aid, estimated at about $140 billion in 2016, according to the New York-based Global Philanthropy Project, which is working to boost LGBT funding in developing countries.

"Only four cents out of every $100 awarded by governments and multilateral agencies funds LGBTI work," Matt Beard, executive director at U.S. rights group All Out, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"There also continues to be a worrying imbalance in terms of the geography of global LGBTI funding."

Despite global gains, many LGBT people around the world face persecution. They are often ostracised, abused, assaulted by mobs, raped or enslaved by criminals in conservative countries, where homosexuality is a taboo, campaigners say.

More than 70 states criminalise same-sex relationships, with some applying the death penalty, according to the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA) rights group.

"It's essential for activists and funders (both new and existing) to work closely together to bring about the change we all want to see," said Bjorn van Roozendaal, programmes director for ILGA-Europe.

Most funding goes to Canada and the United States, which received $287 million in 2015 and 2016 combined, followed by sub-Saharan Africa, which received $54 million in the two year period, then western Europe with $38 million, the report said.

The biggest chunk of money - 57 percent - was used to address human rights for LGBT people, followed by 22 percent for health and wellbeing, the Global Philanthropy Project found.

(Reporting by Serena Chaudhry; Editing by Claire Cozens and Katy Migiro. (Please credit Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

-->