Recent publications from the Council
Accessing U.S. Embassies: A Guide for LGBT Human Rights Defenders
by The Council for Global Equality
This guide is a preview copy of a resource manual for LGBT activists and NGOs in other countries to help them understand how U.S. embassies work; how to call on U.S. diplomats to support their human rights goals; how to access U.S. support, including both technical and financial support; and how to frame requests in ways that will appeal to strategic U.S. priorities. The guide also emphasizes the limits of U.S. embassy support and the potential that exists for backlash in some hostile environments. By presenting the opportunities and difficulties of U.S. embassy engagement, and by highlighting those with concrete examples, the Council aims to provide both the information and the context that will allow individual human rights defenders to decide for themselves when and how to approach U.S. embassies as potential partners in their work. The Council will collect feedback on this working draft before publishing a final version and translating it into French and Spanish later in Spring 2012. Full Report
How Ideology Trumped Science: Why PEPFAR Failed to Meet its Potential
by Scott Evertz in partnership with The Council for Global Equality and The Center for American Progress
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has saved many lives and profoundly shaped the global response to HIV. But like the proverbial Trojan Horse, it has been let into the gates with a belly full of hidden contradictions—insufficient attention to marginalized communities, earmarks for unscientific programming, and forced “pledges” that both undermine sound reproductive rights programming and challenge basic rights to freedom of expression.
In this report, Washington insider Scott Evertz takes a serious look at the politics of one of our country’s signature foreign assistance programs. Scott is the former director of President George W. Bush’s Office of National AIDS Policy and an openly gay Republican, and his analysis reflects a degree of experience and honesty that is too often obscured by the rigid ideology and partisan policymaking that have—up until now—been the cornerstones of PEPFAR and the Bush administration’s bilateral funding strategy. Full Report
LGBT and Other Marginalized Communities:Vital Components of Sound Development Assistance Policies
Marginalized communities are often scorned by society and ignored by their own governments. Those composed of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) individuals are frequently targeted for violence and discrimination. For our developmental assistance strategies to succeed, the Council for Global Equality believes our assistance priorities must embrace the rights and needs of these communities. Full Report
Anchoring Equality: How U.S. Corporations Can Build Equal and Inclusive Global Workforces
A decade into this millennium, the American corporate workplace increasingly reflects fair-minded human resource policies that support lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) employees and their families. The number of companies scoring 100 percent on the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equality Index has increased from 13 in 2002, the first reporting year, to 305 in the 2010 report. Many companies now recognize that LGBT-inclusive workplace policies – from salaries to benefits, and from training and mentoring to employee resource groups – not only are the right thing to do, but are in the best business interests of the corporation.
This wisdom has been applied inconsistently, however, to the overseas manufacturing, sales, and consultancy platforms of many U.S. and multinational companies. In some cases, local managers simply haven’t given thought to the changing realities of a workforce that includes LGBT employees , or the employees themselves have been too fearful or closeted to push the issue. In other cases, corporate leaders have hesitated out of concern that inclusive workplace policies might attract controversy and thereby mar the company’s image in the host country. Meanwhile, within the United States, discriminatory laws impede businesses from attracting and retaining top talent – notably the inability of U.S. citizens and international employees to sponsor their same-sex partners to reside with them in the U.S. Full Report
