By: Resources for the unbelievers, on aid conditionality and LGBT rights | a paper bird

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:39:07 +0000

[…] voices in the UK to shut up and stop pressuring the PM.(They did, obediently.) The ensuing backlash, across Africa and elsewhere, proved exceedingly discouraging about the idea. However, Hillary […]

By: Paul Crist

Paul Crist — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 11:19:22 +0000

An interesting and insightful article. I’m a LatAm expert, not Africa, but certainly understand what the issues are here. It seems Cameron has ignored concepts that have been brewing in health and HIV aid for a number of years…using this aid to assist countries in building health system capacity, and allowing them to do it in their own terms. By building national system capacity to address the health issues they face, some innovative and very workable programs have been developed in a number of sub-Saharan African countries. But when GBS is once implemented, it’s very difficult to take that away and use a different, “strings attached” approach…the change is bound to create a backlash, and especially when tied to an issue like LGBT rights. Aid has to be consistent, and abrupt policy changes such as Cameron has implemented create uncertainty, anger, and resentment…Especially the neoliberal approach Cameron has taken. Much as I’d like to see greater tolerance and acceptance of LGBT people in Africa, the social, cultural, and legal changes have to be led by LGBT people and their families in those countries. That’s a long, slow slog, but it’s the only way to create lasting change.

Comments on: Aid backlash update: Sex, national manhood, and “policy leverage”

By: Resources for the unbelievers, on aid conditionality and LGBT rights | a paper bird

By: Paul Crist