The economies of four East African countries are losing more than $5 billion a year because of discrimination against LGBTQ people.

The 80-page report that Open for Business, a coalition of leading global organizations that champion LGBTQ inclusion, released in late March focuses on Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda. It attributes the losses to anti-homosexuality laws, and predicts more economic costs if lawmakers implement other harsh anti-LGBTQ measures.

The report notes Uganda is losing $2.4 billion, or 5.2 percent of its GDP, annually because of the Anti-Homosexuality Act that took effect in 2023. Open for Business last October revealed the country had already lost $1.6 billion in foreign direct investment, donor aid, trade, tourism, public health and productivity after President Yoweri Museveni signed the law.

Kenya is losing $1.5 billion, or 1.38 percent of its GDP.

The report warns that enacting the pending Family Protection Bill would cost the country an additional $6.3 billion, or 5.8 percent of its GDP, annually. Opposition MP Peter Kaluma, who has introduced the measure, in January claimed the Biden-Harris administration had blocked it and vowed to have fellow MPs pass it after U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Kaluma is a strong supporter of Trump and the Republican Party’s opposition to LGBTQ rights and other far-right conservative ideologies.

Tanzania is losing $1.1 billion, or 1.33 percent of its GDP, because of anti-LGBTQ discrimination. Rwanda is losing $45 million, or .32 percent of its GDP.

Homosexuality is not illegal in Rwanda unlike the other three countries, but consensual same-sex sexual relationships remain taboo. Queer Rwandans also face stigma, discrimination, social exclusion, and arbitrary detention.

“A series of private member bills in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania have threatened to pull the region back in terms of progress and human rights for LGBTQ+ people, and damage both the ease of doing business and their international reputation,” states the Open for Business CEO Dominic Arnall.

Arnall notes his organization’s extensive engagement with businesses across East Africa over the last five years has always linked harmful anti-LGBTQ laws to impacts on a country’s investment prospects.

“The finding lays bare an uncomfortable truth: That laws that harm the LGBTQ+ community are standing in the way of prosperity and growth for all citizens in the region,” he said.  

The report calls for LGBTQ inclusion as part of the region’s broader economic development agenda.

The Open for Business report notes anti-gay violence and discrimination in Tanzania has been on the rise since the late-President John Magufuli came to power in 2015. The country’s punitive anti-homosexuality law with a 30-year prison sentence for consensual same-sex sexual relations was already in place, but queer Tanzanians were generally not systematically targeted.

“Reporting of neighbors or community members for suspected homosexuality is frequent and law enforcement officers have been known to pose as members of the LGBTQ+ community to entrap and blackmail LGBTQ+ individuals,” states the report.  

It also notes the Tanzanian government’s crackdown on websites and social media accounts that promote LGBTQ rights and threatening the arrests of administrators who allow such content. The report concludes this suppression has caused queer people to live in fear and isolation.

Religious organizations, particularly Christian churches in Tanzania, also champion anti-LGBTQ rhetoric by encouraging their followers against tolerating homosexuality and transgender people. Politicians, meanwhile, use anti-LGBTQ narratives to gain support during campaigns.

While Rwanda stands out as the only East African country in which homosexuality is not criminalized and has foreign donors implementing programs that target the queer community, discussing LGBTQ rights in public is rare and same-sex relationships are not legally recognized. The Open for Business report notes this situation creates legal ambiguity and a fragile social environment for queer Rwandans.

“Several LGBTQ+ rights organizations have emerged in recent years, mostly in Kigali, although they do not always identify themselves as LGBTQ+ associations and are rarely formally registered, making it difficult for them to receive funding,” reads the report.

The Rwandan government has rejected calls to criminalize homosexuality, which it considers a “private matter.” It has also been adamant against efforts to protect queer people for fear of domestic opposition and a desire not to politicize the issue like in neighboring countries.

Kenya, like Rwanda, has for a long time been considered more receptive of queer people, “as long as LGBTQ members are not ‘too loud.’”

Anyone convicted under Kenya’s colonial-era sodomy law could face up to 14 years in prison. Efforts to enact a harsh anti-homosexuality law and anti-LGBTQ protests that religious leaders, politicians, and activists have organized have increased homophobia in the country.

“LGBTQ individuals report significant difficulties in securing formal employment, which pushes many of them into more precarious livelihoods in the informal sector,” states the report.

An appeals court in Trinidad and Tobago has recriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in the country.

Jason Jones, an LGBTQ activist from Trinidad and Tobago who currently lives in the U.K., in 2017 challenged Sections 13 and 16 of the country’s Sexual Offenses Act. High Court Justice Devindra Rampersad the following year found them unconstitutional.

The country’s government appealed Rampersad’s ruling.

Court of Appeal Justices Nolan Bereaux and Charmaine Pemberton overturned it on March 25. The Daily Express newspaper reported Justice Vasheist Kokaram dissented.

“As an LGBTQ+ citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, this regressive judgement has ripped up my contract as a citizen of T&T and again makes me an unapprehended criminal in the eyes of the law,” said Jones in a statement he posted to social media. “The TT Court of Appeal has effectively put a target on the back of LGBTQIA+ people and made us lower class citizens in our own country.”

Antigua and Barbuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Barbados, and Dominica are among the countries that have decriminalized consensual same-sex sexual relations in recent years.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2021 issued a decision that said Jamaica must repeal its colonial-era sodomy law. The Jamaican Supreme Court in 2023 ruled against a gay man who challenged it.

A judge on St. Vincent and the Grenadines’s top court last year dismissed two cases that challenged the country’s sodomy laws.

Jones in his statement said he “will be exercising my right of appeal and taking this matter to the” Privy Council, an appellate court for British territories that can also consider cases from Commonwealth countries.

King Charles III is not Trinidad and Tobago’s head of the state, but the country remains part of the Commonwealth.

“I hope justice will be done and these heinous discriminatory laws, a legacy of British colonialism, will be removed by the British courts,” said Jones.

President Donald Trump on Thursday withdrew U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.)’s nomination to become the next U.S. ambassador to the U.N.

The Associated Press noted Trump in a Truth Social post said it was “essential to maintain every Republican seat in Congress.”

Republicans currently have a narrow 218-213 majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Special elections to fill the seats that National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and former U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) vacated when they joined the Trump-Vance administration and resigned respectively will take place on April 1 in Florida.

“Elise Stefanik is truly a great leader and a devoted patriot,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a statement. “Today’s selfless decision shows America what those of us who work with her already know. She is deeply devoted to her country and fully committed to see President Trump’s agenda succeed in Congress.”

“It is well known Republicans have a razor-thin House majority, and Elise’s agreement to withdraw her nomination will allow us to keep one of the toughest, most resolute members of our conference in place to help drive forward President Trump’s America First policies,” he added. “There is no doubt she would have served with distinction as our ambassador to the United Nations, but we are grateful for her willingness to sacrifice that position and remain in Congress to help us save the country.”

Stefanik, 40, has represented New York’s 21st Congressional District since 2015. She later became chair of the House Republican Conference.

Stefanik in 2019 voted for the Equality Act, but she opposed it in 2021. Stefanik in 2022 is among the dozens of Republicans who voted for the Respect for Marriage Act that then-President Joe Biden signed.

Stefanik, among other things, has also been outspoken against antisemitism on college campuses.

Trump has not said who he will nominate to become U.N. ambassador. Johnson in his statement said he will “invite her to return to the leadership table” of the House Republican Conference “immediately.”