Project Syndicate: The Development Costs of Homophobia
Adebisi Alimi, an LGBT advocate and HIV activist, and a 2014 Aspen New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute

“…This year, Nigeria and Uganda put in place draconian anti-gay laws, sparking a worldwide debate about human rights. This debate has also started at the World Bank, whose president, Jim Yong Kim, recently declared that ‘institutionalized discrimination is bad for people and for societies.’ … Looking ahead, the Bank should … make legal protections for sexual orientation and gender identity a condition for countries receiving loans. … If the Bank — which currently lends Nigeria almost $5.5 billion and expects to commit an additional $2 billion in each of the next four years — moved in this direction, other funders might follow. Africa’s LGBT people desperately need such powerful allies in their struggle for human and economic rights” (6/17).