Uganda’s minority groups face rising fear as US aid halts

Ugandan LGBTQ+ rights activist Pius Kennedy is one of many humanitarian workers across the world who is effectively out of a job since U.S. President Donald Trump shut down the government's main agency for delivering humanitarian aid to other countries.

The Africa Queer Network nonprofit where he works provides counselling for members of Uganda’s LGBTQ community and receives most of its funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Along with five other permanent employees, Kennedy received a letter ordering them to stop work immediately at the end of January after Trump ordered USAID to halt most of its work.

USAID has been one of the agencies hardest hit as the new White House administration and Elon Musk’s budget-cutting team target federal programs they say are wasteful or not aligned with a conservative agenda.

“Some donors are now going to pull out resources because they were also receiving from the similar funding baskets to sub grant to us," said Kennedy.

According to Kennedy, the funding cuts mean reversing years of gains in the country.

He said USAID had been the biggest funder of HIV programs, with around 20 million people receiving drugs and testing services through associated organisations.

Amid uncertainty on the future of US funding, Kennedy underscored the immediate impact on at-risk individuals in the world’s poorest communities decrying that survivors of gender-based violence have nowhere to turn for medical or psychological support.

He is also concerned about the impact of tougher conditions on asylum seekers.

After Uganda last year passed one of the most repressive anti-homosexuality laws in the world, the U.S. was seen as a safe haven for members of the LGBTQ+ community.

But now Kennedy fears that LGBTQ+ people under threat in Uganda will no longer be able to claim asylum there.

"I'm looking at this not as an issue that affected Uganda or that affected East Africa, it’s an issue that has affected the global citizenship," he said.