ABSTRACT
There is no shortage of research ideas when it comes to evaluating the plight of sexual and gender minorities – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning (LGBTQ+) persons and groups – around the developing world. The need for such research is clear and the stakes are high; members of sexual and gender minorities are generally excluded from many of the essential benefits of international development. They are frequently unable to secure decent employment, access health care and education, participate in democratic processes, find secure housing, get married or adopt children. They frequently face violence and abuse, and they have limited if any access to justice or to the rule of law. Despite these many hardships, international development investments and programming largely excludes them as beneficiaries – for the simple reasons that they are underreported or invisible in the context of available data, or they are intentionally ignored due to their marginalized status. The relegation of marginalized persons and groups to a low priority status for assistance is largely driven by political ideologies, and is beyond the scope of this chapter to address. Yet results always matter; under current operational norms among most of the prominent foreign assistance donors, the flow of funding for the design and implementation of international relief and development initiatives is tied to the ability of such aid programs to demonstrate results achieved compared to a baseline. Donor funds are always scarce and competition to access them is therefore intense; only those projects that can demonstrate genuine progress compared to an empirically robust baseline stand a chance of being funded. For LGBTQ+ persons, those baselines simply don’t exist.
