The government of Sweden announced on
Wednesday it will withhold all bilateral financial assistance to Uganda in
response to the passing last week of a bill that criminalizes homosexuality.
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| A protestor during a demonstration against Uganda’s anti-gay law. |
Minister
for International Development Cooperation Hillevi Engstroem said in a statement: “Swedish aid is
not unconditional” and such a law “violates the fundamental rights of
homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender people.”
Sweden,
which will continue to fund Ugandan civil society organizations that deliver
relief to members of the LGBTI community suffering from HIV/AIDS and other
services, thus joins the ranks of Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands, which
also decided to freeze official development assistance and all budget support
to Uganda after the anti-gay bill was signed into law by President Yoweri
Museveni on February 24. The law not only bans promoting homosexuality, but
makes it a crime to not report same-sex relations and even contemplates life
imprisonment for repeat offenders.
Development
professionals and other netizens immediately reacted to the announcement on
Twitter.
“Good guy
Sweden,” tweeted @jillianserena,
while @thepoliticalcat wrote
that “every country in the WORLD needs to do this” and @carnun said
that “discrimination cannot be ignored no matter what the motivation for it,
whether religious, moral or cultural.”
At least
one Ugandan disagreed — @osundwaj hit
back arguing that “Africa is free … we don’t need aid, you think we are poor
[but] we have enough resources” and claimed that Sweden is withholding ODA to
“destabilize” Uganda.
Other
netizens based in Europe like @Okisam or @bjorn_pius questioned why Sweden is
freezing aid to Uganda but continues to buy oil from another nation with
homophobic laws like Russia, or the fact that Uganda is taking all the
attention away from Nigeria, another top oil producer.
According
to the country’s open aid data hub, Sweden provided in 2013 a total of $32.7
million in aid to Uganda, the lion’s share (35 percent) of which was allocated
to health through the official development agency SIDA.
Of the top
5 beneficiary implementers, 3 carry out HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment
programs, which under the new legislation could be considered a felony,
depending on the judge’s interpretation. This could become a serious problem
for CSOs, even if they continue receiving funds from donors that decide to end
direct budget support.
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