Funding halt stalls LGBTQ+ advocacy efforts in Pacific Island nations
The US President's decision to freeze foreign aid has disrupted crucial work on LGBTQ+ rights and HIV prevention in the Pacific Islands. This development is related to several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), including Health (SDG 3), Inequality (SDG 10), Peace (SDG 16), Partnerships (SDG 17), and others.
The US Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and the Agency for International Development (USAID) had provided funds for law reform, community spaces, data collection, and improving access to healthcare in the Pacific Islands. These funds were instrumental in supporting various initiatives aimed at promoting LGBTQ+ rights and combating HIV, a disease that is on the rise in the region.
The LGBTQ+ community in Tonga, which has not recorded an HIV case since 2015, could see fresh cases if community-led organizations lose funding. Similarly, HIV infections are rising in Fiji, with the country declaring an outbreak in January. The absence of data on Indigenous gender-diverse identities in the South Pacific region, such as Māhūs and fa'afafine, invisibilizes their existence, according to Ratu Eroni, co-chair of ILGA Oceania.
The freeze in US funding has caused multiple NGOs to pause their work, according to Eamonn Murphy, director of UNAIDS regional support teams for the Asia-Pacific region. The DRL initiated a funding competition for up to $2 million for grassroots LGBTQ+ organizations in January 2024, but it is unclear what will happen to that funding stream now.
The Netherlands plans to cut overseas development aid by more than two-thirds over the next three years, making it the fourth biggest funder of the Asia-Pacific region. However, the Asia-Pacific region received only 5% of global LGBTQ+ funding between 2021 and 2022.
Joey Joleen Mataele, co-founder of Tonga Leitis Association, stated that the funds they receive from the Global Fund and Outright International have been crucial in controlling HIV and STIs. The US organization that announced an open competition with up to 2 million US dollars for grassroots LGBTQ+ organizations in the Pacific is not explicitly identified in the provided search results.
The story is published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters. It covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking, and property rights, among other topics. The story is related to aid, financing, investment, reporting, research, inequality, poverty, healthcare, human rights, diseases, LGBTQ, and cities.
Notably, colonial-era sodomy laws, criminalizing same-sex activity, still exist in Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Tuvalu. The ILGA Oceania, the Pacific branch of the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA), has paused its decriminalisation project due to the aid freeze.
This development underscores the importance of continued support for LGBTQ+ rights and HIV prevention efforts in the Pacific Islands and the need for comprehensive data collection to address the socioeconomic status of gender-diverse individuals, including unemployment and lack of access to healthcare.
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