Anti-gay Malawi to miss from World Bank funding

Malawi and other developing nations will be sidelined from World Bank funding in projects that could end up harming gay people.

This has been disclosed by the President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim speaking at the Economist’s ‘Pride and Prejudice’ conference  taking place in London, New York and Hong Kong.

The World Bank is an international financial institution that specialises in provides loans to developing countries for projects, assisting in their development and creating infrastructure to help tackle poverty.

“We’re trying to look at another principle that is important, that that principle is that if something we support leads not only to discrimination but endangerment, don’t we as an institution have to stand up and say ‘no’?”

He said: “As a minimum, we have to stop a loan that can either discriminate or endanger – and we’ve never had that discussion before inside the World Bank.”

Malawi this year attracted the wrath of international civil service, the United Nations on the  decision to withdrawal a case against People’s Party  (PP) publicist Ken Msonda who was charged with an offence of inciting people to kill gays.

Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,Rupert Colville, says the discontinuance of the case sends a bad message to the society that killing gays is legal in Malawi.

Msonda was  charged under section 124(1)(b) of the Penal Code, which makes it a criminal offence to incite others to break the law after a criminal case was initiated by two civil society organizations Centre for Develop to People (Cedep) and Centre for Human Rights and Rehabilitation ( CHRR).

Director of public prosecutions Mary Kachale said she would not reveal reasons for the discontinuance of the case until she faces the Legal Affairs Committee of parliament

Religious people, including the biggest church in Malawi, the Catholic church have asked President Peter Mutharika not to legalise homosexuality.

The UN further says  Malawi has a responsibility, enshrined in international human rights law, to protect all individuals from hatred and violence based on their sexual orientation and gender identity, and to hold to account anyone who either engages in such violence or incites others to do so. 7

And they have since urged the Government to meet its responsibilities in this regard and protect all individuals from hatred and violence based on their sexual orientation and gender identity.

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