Bangkok — “Oxfam in Africa has departed from the values that govern the Oxfam Confederation.”
Oxfam in Africa has walked back internal guidelines that would have barred staff from mentioning LGBTQ rights in public, work-related communications.
“No proactive communications linking Oxfam’s brand in Africa or Africans to LGBTQIA+ issues and its derivatives,” instructs a now-shelved communications guide circulated among Africa-based country directors on 1 June, which The New Humanitarian has seen.
The guide’s key restrictions were addressed to “everyone across the Oxfam Confederation”. Oxfam in Africa (OiA) includes over a dozen country offices and is one of several regional platforms under Oxfam International. Oxfam International is one of more than 20 member organisations within the wider confederation.
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The purpose of the 10-page guide, it states, was “not to step away from Oxfam’s values”, but to keep the organisation’s work “context-sensitive” and avoid creating risks to LGBTQ communities, partners, and staff in Africa.
Anti-LGBTQ legislation and sentiment are advancing across Africa, fuelled by a powerful interfaith coalition backed by the US Christian right. Uganda, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Senegal have introduced or passed severe anti-LGBTQ laws in recent years. On 29 May, Ghana’s parliament passed a sweeping anti-LGBTQ bill that, if signed into law, would make “promoting” LGBTQ activities punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
“Public perceptions that Oxfam is promoting positions that are viewed as inconsistent with prevailing social, cultural or religious norms may affect acceptance of our programmes, access to communities, and the sustainability of partnerships,” the communications guide states.
The guide was the latest move in a multiyear effort by OiA leaders to restrict advocacy for LGBTQ rights in Africa, current and former Oxfam staff told The New Humanitarian. They said these restrictions have left staff feeling afraid to openly support LGBTQ causes. An anonymous whistleblower group shared evidence of LGBTQ-related censorship going back to early 2024.
“Oxfam in Africa has departed from the values that govern the Oxfam Confederation,” the group said.
A history of internal censorship
Numerous Oxfam entities openly support LGBTQ rights. Oxfam South Africa, which is separate from OiA, seeks to end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and has recently posted pro-LGBTQ content on social media. Oxfam in Ghana, which is now part of OiA, published a social media post celebrating movements working to end violence against trans and non-binary people in late 2021, before OiA was created.
OiA was formed in 2022 by consolidating three previously separate regional entities, with Fati N’zi-Hassane appointed as its director. She reports to Oxfam International’s global programmes director, Adama Coulibaly.
Internal communications shared by the whistleblower group reveal efforts by N’zi-Hassane to enforce informal rules against LGBTQ messaging going back to early 2024, creating confusion among staff and friction with Oxfam entities outside Africa.
In January that year, one staffer asked a colleague how to respond to an LGBTQ organisation that had reached out to OiA. The colleague replied: “Fati says we do not engage.”
The following May, N’zi-Hassane emailed country directors instructing them to “Avoid using the term ‘LGBTQIA+’ or its derivatives” – a line that appears in the now-scrapped guide – to protect the integrity and safety of Oxfam’s operations in Africa. That same day, in an email The New Humanitarian has seen, OiA spokesperson Simon Trepanier relayed the directive to the communications team: “The bottom line is we don’t do any proactive communications on this subject.”
In August 2025, Trepanier flagged a report on girls’ education, co-produced by Oxfam and a UN partner, because “LGBTQI is among the subjects of the report and mentioned multiple times”. He said the report “clashes with our guidelines on LBGTQI”.
Audace Kubwimana, OiA’s programme director, demanded the document be taken offline. An Oxfam Denmark colleague argued that removing a useful knowledge product was a “risky move for us strategically” and would create a “slightly embarrassing situation of removing a document that is already in use by a UN partnership”. The Oxfam Denmark colleague challenged OiA to provide “concrete reasons” for the censorship.
The email exchange continued for two weeks, with Kubwimana eventually arguing that “the feminist and decolonial thing to do now is to remove the document from [the] internet” until OiA and Africa-based country directors signed off on it. “[One] can not assume what they would say if consulted,” he told the Oxfam Denmark colleague.
The girls’ education report remains online. However, in searching for examples of Oxfam communications about LGBTQ issues in Africa, The New Humanitarian found an article titled “Queer liberation is African liberation“, which appears to have been deleted from Oxfam’s UK website sometime after January this year.
In May, OiA sought to formalise its censorship rules by developing the “Oxfam in Africa guide on engagements around LGBTQIA+ Matters”. Paul Vingi, OiA’s interim gender justice lead, emailed Africa-based country directors on 25 May, asking them for feedback on the document.
“As we will soon be entering Pride Month in June, it is important that we are guided by these shared guidelines in our engagement and decision-making,” Vingi wrote.
On 1 June, Vingi circulated the “final version” of the document, asking the country directors for “formal sign-off” by the following day.
The guide prohibits producing or sharing any communications material, or proactively discussing anything publicly, that would link Oxfam’s brand in Africa to LGBTQ issues. In some cases, it allows “quiet diplomacy, partner support, coalition engagement, or internal advocacy, rather than public-facing communication”.
“Red line: Avoid using the term ‘LGBTQIA+’ or its derivatives,” the guide states in a section about stakeholder relationships.
A former OiA staffer who spoke separately with The New Humanitarian said the organisation’s censorship “clearly goes against our diversity policy. I’ve read it over and over and over. We cannot use excuses like security. We have to be overtly pro-LGBTQI.”
Oxfam’s global policy on sexual diversity and gender identity rights states that the organisation “must challenge” the legal and social barriers affecting LGBTQ people, advocate for them, and stand in solidarity with LGBTQ groups. It affirms sexual and gender expression rights “without arbitrary intrusions or limitations based on dominant cultural beliefs or political ideology, or discriminatory notions of public order, public morality, public health or public security”.
On 4 June, in response to The New Humanitarian’s questions about the restrictions, Oxfam International said in an emailed statement: “We are not now using the guidance on communications around LGBTQIA+ issues in Africa because it did not give us enough clarity and consistency. The guidelines anyway concerned the institution’s positioning and did not relate to individuals’ views or beliefs.”
Oxfam International’s statement referred to the document as a “draft guidance” written by “some staff in the region”. Document metadata suggests that the guidance was written by Kubwimana, OiA’s programme director. Vingi’s emails about finalising the document were also sent to OiA’s senior leadership team.
“It hadn’t been approved and was withdrawn this week,” Oxfam International’s statement said, adding that an executive-level taskforce, established in December, is working to issue new guidance.
Censoring a partner’s website
OiA’s language rules have extended beyond its own communications, directly affecting at least one external partner. In 2024, OiA appeared to delay signing a partnership agreement for a youth project with a Uganda-based NGO until the NGO had scrubbed an LGBTQ reference from its website.
Internal communications show that N’zi-Hassane had agreed to finalise the partnership after Oxfam’s Uganda country director signed off on it, which the country director did on 14 May that year. But N’zi-Hassane did not follow up with her signature for another month.
Internal chats from 13 June show OiA leadership scrutinising the NGO’s website, specifically a staff member’s profile that mentioned working “in an organisation for LGBT people and sex workers in Uganda”.
Following a call between the two organisations, Kubwimana informed colleagues that the NGO “finally did it… they removed only the name Uganda… not LDBTQ”, an apparent typo.
That was sufficient for OiA. N’zi-Hassane replied: “Well done colleagues… I’m signing the partnership agreement then.”
“I was in total, total shock that we were doing that,” the former OiA staffer said. “The organisation removed [the wording], and my leaders celebrated.”
Oxfam International’s statement said OiA “has not withheld funding from partners because of any principled disagreement”.
“We discuss risk management, legal compliance, safeguarding, [staff] safety, reputational risks, and communications approaches with our partners as part of normal program management and due diligence processes,” the statement said. “Where concerns were raised, they related to managing identifiable legal and security risks in specific operating contexts rather than restricting program objectives or support to communities.”
Similar disagreements have arisen inside other aid organisations facing financial or political pressure to adjust their public messaging on LGBTQ rights. Christian Aid, the UK-based anti-poverty charity, faced criticism from staff last year after deleting content related to LGBTQ issues from its website following donor pressure. A spokesperson told The New Humanitarian the deletion “does not reflect any change in attitude of support for LGBTQ+ staff”.
Several US-based NGOs removed references to diversity, equity, equality, inclusion, gender, and climate change from their websites last year, with some citing donor compliance or perceived pressure from the Trump administration.
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“You can see the panic”
OiA’s enforcement of language rules has taken a toll on staff, raising fears of being perceived as LGBTQ rights supporters, according to the whistleblower group and the former OiA staffer.
“The language has become such a major issue that you risk being fired,” said the former staffer, who spoke of several people who appeared to have either quit or been laid off after questioning leadership about LGBTQ issues. “You can see the panic all of us are going through over something that should be fairly normal.”
People perceived to be LGBTQ rights supporters have “tended to fall off the ladder”, the former staffer said, adding that OiA’s restructuring earlier this year appears to have disproportionately affected staff who sought to keep OiA’s LGBTQ positions aligned with the rest of the confederation.
“There is a growing toxic organisational culture within OiA in which staff who disagree with leadership are marginalised or forced out,” the whistleblower group said.
Oxfam International maintains that OiA’s restructuring was purely financial.
“The end result is a reduction of five staff from a team of 65,” its statement said, adding that the process was reviewed by an independent transition management team. “We reject the allegation that staff have been targeted or pressured for supporting our institutional position in support of LGBTQIA+ rights and feminist principles.”
The statement did not say when a new guidance on LGBTQ communications would be issued or how it would differ from the one developed by OiA.
The former staffer said any future policy should take into account the inherent risks of Oxfam’s work, including delivering aid in places like Uganda and Somalia, and not single out the risk of supporting LGBTQ communities.
“You can’t use that danger as an excuse to discriminate,” the former staffer said, before OiA withdrew its communications guide. “It’s not like Africans [in Oxfam] have a problem. Africans have agreed – they say we can do this work. But the leadership of Oxfam is saying no… It’s too risky for you.”
Edited by Andrew Gully.
Jacob Goldberg, Staff Editor and Reporter, Investigations
