US Christian Right Groups Spent $20 Million in Africa Since 2015

A two-month investigation reveals how US Christian Right groups spent millions of dollars in Africa as anti-LGBTIQ feeling rose in the region

Leading US Christian Right organisations that share an anti-LGBTIQ, anti-abortion agenda have spent more than $20 million in sub-Saharan Africa since 2015, an investigation by Byline Times can reveal today. 

The findings come as LGBTIQ rights face renewed attack in countries across the Continent, particularly in Uganda, Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya – with Ugandan authorities shutting down organisations supporting LGBTIQ people, and politicians warning that legislation is needed to “conclude the matter” of homosexuality “once and for all”.

Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa said this month, regarding LGBTIQ people and abortion, that “I heard someone say are human rights which must be respected universally. I just want to assure you, they can never be accepted in Uganda. The Uganda Parliament I lead will never pass laws that are against our values”.

Ghana is seeking to pass an anti-LGBTIQ bill before elections next year.

Our analysis found that seven US Christian Right organisations are each spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in Africa: Human Life International; Heartbeat International; World Youth Alliance; the Acton Institute; Alliance Defending Freedom; the Fellowship Foundation; and Focus on the Family.

However, the figure may well be the tip of the iceberg, with other organisations such as the American Centre for Law and Justice (ACLJ) running an office in East Africa, and groups like World Congress of Families organising conferences in the region. The influential Family Watch International is also active across the continent, listing its spend as related to conferences in Africa. 

The figures may also be higher, as three organisations had only provided filings up to 2019, with only one organisation submitting a tax return for the 2021 financial year.

Globally, the 10 leading US Christian Right organisations – adding in ACLJ, the Cato Institute and the Federalist Society – had spent more than $74 million outside the US in the time analysed, including $35 million in Europe, Russia and its neighbouring states.

The Fellowship Foundation was by far the biggest spender, with 990 filings revealing it spent $18,182,736 in sub-Saharan Africa between 2015-2019, including on hospitals and schools. The organisation was the focus of the Netflix documentary The Family, with author Jeff Sharlet stating it “focuses on places that no one is paying attention to where they can have a big influence”. The documentary details its ties with various African nations and leaders.

In response to Byline Times’ research, Dutch MEP Sophie In t’Veld said: “American organisations are actively shaping national and regional anti-LGBTIQ and anti-abortion discourses around the world. They have succeeded spectacularly, and with devastating effect, in a number of countries”.

The Ugandan MP and chair of its Parliament’s Human Rights Committee Fox Odoi-Oywelowo told Byline Times: “The Christian groups from the US pump in money to propagate a genocidal ideology. They pump in money, to pass legislation that criminalises people expressing love”. 

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LGBTIQ Rights Under Attack

Hostility towards LGBTIQ rights has been in the spotlight in East Africa with attempts by the East African Legislative Assembly to pass a Sexual and Reproductive Health Bill that promotes comprehensive sex education and aims to “protect and faciliate the fulfilment of the life-course sexual and reproductive health and rights of all persons in the Community”.

Homophobia in Uganda hit the headlines in the late 2000s and early 2010s, when a bill to make homosexuality a capital offence was introduced and then swiftly repealed. Anti-LGBTIQ feeling has ramped up in recent months, with the closure of SMUG (Sexual Minorites Uganda), run by Frank Mugisha, and a speech in Parliament by the MP Ekanya Geoffrey where he said the Government needed “to bring a law here on LGBT and homosexuality so this matter can be discussed and we can conclude it once and for all”.

“Let’s be clear about this: people like Mugisha experience danger and attacks on their freedom instigated by American ideologues and American money,” said In t’Veld. 

“There has been a regression,” said Odoi-Oywelowo, who believes he is one of 20 pro-LGBTIQ representatives in Uganda’s Parliament. “I have always said when you are talking about LGBTIQ rights you are talking about human rights”.

Individuals like Stephen Langa, from the Family Life Network, have accused LGBTIQ people of “grooming” children who are “hunted” in schools by “ruthless homosexuals”.

“Anti-gender groups have had time to organise since a 2014 challenge to the LGBTIQ laws,” said Fridah Mutesi, a human rights lawyer based in Kampala. “They use this line that LGBTIQ people are promoting homosexuality and grooming children – this is a global trend”.

While Ugandan individuals such as Manga are the visible face of anti-gender opposition in the country, US Christian Right organisations such as Human Life International (HLI) are active in the region. Based in Virginia, in the US, it has spent over $1.4 million in sub-Saharan Africa since 2015.

Although primarily an anti-abortion organisation, Human Life International is of interest due to its previous relationships with anti-LGBTIQ activists in Uganda, and for its stance on the Sex and Reproductive Healthcare Bill being debated in the East Africa Legislative Assembly. 

According to a 2012 paper authored by Kapya John Kaoma, Human Life International’s regional coordinator Emil Hagamu praised the Ugandan Parliament as “typically African” for promoting the “kill the gays” bill.

Byline Times has seen an email sent from a Ugandan Human Life International staff member to members of the East Africa Legislative Assembly saying: “We are watching you silently. For the sake of our children say no to the EAC SRH Bill. Save the generation.” HLI did not respond to our request for comment.

HLI has run “pro family” training in Uganda, with both US and African speakers. A pro family training event in summer 2021 featured Sharon Slater, head of Family Watch International (FWI), which has spent $58,532 on conferences in Africa since 2015, as well as $271,610 on its “global family policy” and a further $301,521 on travel for its global family policy. 

Despite Mormon Sharon Slater founding the organisation after a political awakening at the World Congress of Families – seen as an umbrella for the Christian right – FWI resists the Christian Right label, claiming they are a non-denominational organisation that does not rely on religious perspectives to promote their pro-family policies. It described its global family policy to Byline Times as supporting UN delegations to “protect the health and innocence of their children” and defend “their right to self-determination without being coerced, bullied or blackmailed by UN agencies and donor countries”.

Slater is well known for her anti-LGBTIQ activism in Uganda. She has claimed that LGBTIQ individuals are prone to disease, “significantly more promiscuous,” and “more likely to engage in paedophilia”. She is linked to the virulently homophobic pastor Martin Ssempa who recently accused the United Nations of trying to “force homosexua