ISDAO's 2025 Highlights

The spirit of unity, cohesion, and solidarity is (and has been) very important (...) in 2025. We have shown resilience in the face of adversity that has affected us individually, as an organization, and as a movement…

Driven by strengthened solidarity and an unshakeable belief in a better future, we have seen our communities respond to changing circumstances with renewed energy. It has become clear that our strength lies in our ability to act together, based on a shared strategy and coordinated responses. It is in this spirit that we have focused our efforts on strengthening regional knowledge sharing, collective engagement, and attentive listening to the field.

Indeed, in 2025, our movements faced an unprecedented series of attacks: budget cuts, funding stoppages, the adoption of criminalizing laws, the restriction—or even suspension—of civic space, arbitrary arrests, the proliferation of public hate speech, and the intensification of violence in the digital space. These repressive dynamics are not isolated incidents: they reflect a worrying decline in fundamental freedoms and a direct threat to the very existence of our organizations and the communities we serve.

Here are some highlights from our 2025.

• Funding our movements:  In 2025, we committed $3.4 million USD across our grant portfolios, an 11.23% increase from the previous year. Through these grants, we deepened our commitment to LGBTIQ-led organizations in the region with multi-year commitments, providing funding for up to three years to enable organizations and groups to strengthen and sustain their impact.
  
  Based on recommendations from ISDAO’s regional Activist Grant Making Panel, we strengthened our strategic funding approach to support coordinated, country-level responses in the face of significant shifts across the region. This has enabled movements to rebuild solidarity, strengthen security and community well-being, and respond to hostile legislation.
• Our Ears to the Ground: As part of our annual pre-grant site visits, our team visited more than 70 partners across nine countries, meeting the activists and community organizations at the heart of our vibrant movements. We also conducted several learning and partnership-building visits across three countries, engaging with partner organizations, allied groups, networks, and key movement actors to gain direct insight into urgent needs, movement priorities, and funding gaps.
• The final year of the Love Alliance: With the Love Alliance initiative coming to a close, ISDAO convened Learning Forums that brought together partners funded throughout the initiative, from the LGBTQI, Sex Workers, and People Who Use Drugs (PWUD) movements in Burkina Faso and Nigeria. The forums provided an opportunity for partners to reflect on the initiative’s impact and to explore ways to sustain and build on the progress achieved.
  
  In Burkina Faso, the partners articulated a shared vision under the theme,  “Love Never Stops”. In Nigeria, partners expressed their collective commitment through a manifesto, declaring “Love no dey finish, together we run ”.
• Creating Movement-Centered Spaces: We also convened ISDAO’s first regional grantee forum, bringing together more than 50 partners from across the sub-region to share experiences, learn from one another, and define collective priorities. This gathering was held at a timely moment, one marked by rapidly shifting legal, political, social, and security contexts. Insights and strategies from this space will be published in a report later this year.
• Supporting advocacy and knowledge production:  We supported the meaningful participation of West African activists in international advocacy, learning, and networking spaces, including the EGIDES International conference in Montreal, the Pan Africa ILGA Regional Conference in South Africa, as well as the UN CSW69 and the NGO CSW forum in New York. We also produced key resources, such as the Doundou Country Reports and Creating the Future We Want, that capture important data, stories, and strategic insights from the movement.

Looking Ahead

In 2026, ISDAO will focus on strengthening West African LGBTQI movements through sustained funding, accompaniment, and broader efforts to strengthen the movement. We will work to enhance safeguarding, protection, and collective resistance in the face of growing threats and attacks from anti-rights and anti-gender actors. Internally, ISDAO will continue to invest in its governance and organizational and staff well-being, ensuring our long-term sustainability.

Change is possible, change takes time.