News
Published in 2025
It is a profoundly political act: standing together in the face of horror —Robin Coste Lewis
Communities supporting one another, sharing resources, creating spaces for well-being and connection, and finding ways to keep organizing through difficult circumstances. This is what 2025 looked like across our movements.
Indeed, 2025 was a harsh and tumultuous year for LGBTQI movements in West Africa, following an already challenging previous year. Across the region, these movements faced increased criminalisation and violence, as well as significant funding cuts. It was the year when many community members felt the most abandoned, as fewer and fewer allies remained by their side.
It is this spirit that gives our 2025 Annual Report its name: GONDAL — a Fulfulde/Pulaar word for solidarity.
Download the report to learn how ISDAO committed more than 3.3 million USD across our grant portfolios in 2025, a 12.65% increase from the previous year, and how our partners held each other up through coordinated country-level responses amid significant shifts across the region.
Read the stories of partners who used art and creativity to advocate for their communities, and those who pooled resources together during moments of crisis to prioritize collective care.
Discover how partners came together across languages and countries at ISDAO’s first Regional Forum to invest in one another’s struggles; reflected on years of collective learning as Love Alliance came to an end; and brought their knowledge and experiences into global movement spaces, including the Égides International Conference in Montreal and the Pan Africa ILGA Regional Conference in South Africa.
GONDAL is a reflection on all that LGBTQI movements in West Africa withstood, created, and achieved in 2025, and a celebration of the solidarity that made so much of it possible.
Download it. Read it. Sit with it. Share it with anyone committed to building a more equitable and inclusive future for all.
*GONDAL is a word that means ‘solidarity’ in Fulfulde or Pulaar, the language spoken by the Fulani ethnic group.
