News
Published on 02/25/2025
Dear activists, partners, and friends,
Welcome to 2025!
We're delighted to start the adventure of the new year with you.
But first, we invite you to look back at the highlights of our year 2024!
Last year was full of twists and turns: celebrations, impactful actions, learning, serious threats, and deep uncertainties.
How did it go?
We supported LGBTQI-led movements across West Africa, as well as sex workers and people who use drugs in Burkina Faso and Nigeria through the Love Alliance. This support included grantmaking and facilitating participation in key spaces. Despite external threats and challenges throughout the year, our commitment to strengthening our communities never wavered.
As a result, we made 104 grants across multiple portfolios, committing over 3 million U.S. Dollars to organizations, groups, and activists driving meaningful change in their communities. Our team visited over 70 partners in 9 countries, to meet the activists and community organizations at the heart of our dynamic movements.
By creating strategic spaces, we enabled activists and groups to connect, learn from each other, and strengthen their skills, working together to advance the rights and well-being of our communities. We organized a bilingual West African LBQ Convening and funded joint movement initiatives in Nigeria and Burkina Faso, helping to create stronger, more collaborative movements.
Some of our partners participated in key advocacy spaces such as CSW68, the AIDS 2024 Conference, the ILGA World Conference, and the AWID Forum, as speakers, presenters, and participants, sharing our movements' priorities and perspectives on these regional and global platforms.
Internally, we focused on building a supportive and sustainable organization, welcoming four new team members, expanding the size and diversity of our activist grant-making panel, and securing additional resources to support the work of our partners. We also welcomed new members to our Governing Board.
Finally, we collaborated with the African Women's Development Fund (AWDF), Purposeful, the Doria Feminist Fund, and the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) to establish the Komboa consortium, an initiative dedicated to supporting communities facing the actions and rhetoric of anti-rights and anti-gender movements in Africa.
2024 also came with significant challenges to our work in West Africa. LGBTQI communities faced increasing criminalization and escalating attacks against rights and gender. Many have also been victims of violent physical and digital attacks with serious repercussions to their mental health. Other challenges including frequent power and internet cuts in the region have also impacted our work as an organization working primarily online.
We look forward to sharing more about our journey in our 2024 annual report.
In 2025, we remain committed to strengthening LGBTQI movements across West Africa while addressing critical challenges. We will focus on prioritizing organizational development, ensuring the safety and well-being of our staff, protecting our communities, resisting anti-rights actors, and celebrating a decade of ISDAO’s impact. Yes, it's already been 10 years since ISDAO was established as a fund.
Our vision has not changed: a just and inclusive West Africa, free from violence and discrimination.
