LGBTQ+ rights are human rights says New World Bank U.S.A. executive director
May 3, 2024Acting U.S.A. World Bank Executive Director L. Felice Gorordo recently communicated to the Washington Blade his dedication to promoting LGBTQ+ rights within the international financial institution.
“LGBTQI+ rights are human rights and human rights are LGBTQI+ rights. Period. Hard stop,” he expressed during an exclusive interview at his D.C. office on March 27. “I see it, personally, from a human rights promotion lens.”
Born in Miami, Gorordo is a Cuban American who completed his education at Georgetown University in 2005.
He is a co-founder of Roots of Hope, a nonprofit aiming to empower young Cubans on the island through entrepreneurship and enhanced technology access.
Gorordo has held several positions under both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations and was an advisor to the then-Vice President Joe Biden’s cancer initiative following his mother's death from pancreatic cancer.
His career also includes roles as CEO of three venture-backed technology firms, an investor and advisor at two venture capital funds focused on global healthcare and infrastructure, and board memberships at various for-profit and nonprofit organisations. Before being confirmed by the U.S.A. Senate in May 2023, Gorordo served as the CEO of eMerge Americas and as executive director of the Technology Foundation of the Americas.
He assumed the role of the World Bank’s acting U.S.A. executive director following Adriana Kugler's move to the Federal Reserve Board.
According to ‘Washington Blade’, during the interview, Gorordo, 41, referred to the Biden-Harris administration’s 2021 memo which committed the U.S.A. to promote LGBTQ+ rights internationally as a facet of U.S.A. foreign policy.
“It starts off with us at the bank trying to build demand for the issues related to LGBTQI+ rights and people,” he explained. “It’s about protecting LGBTQI+ rights in and outside of World Bank operations and projects and supporting LGBTQI+ people and rights inside and outside of our projects through inclusion. It’s using our voice and vote at every chance that we get to advance LGBTQI+ people.”
Image Credit: Canva
Gorordo noted that his office reviews about 700 projects annually for the World Bank, which have financial commitments averaging $90-$100 billion (approximately £71.5-£79.5 billion). He mentioned that there is a “pretty extensive review process for due diligence” which contains criteria that include environmental and social frameworks and bank safeguards (which currently do not explicitly include sexual orientation or gender identity).
“We take a critical lens at each one that it lives up to the values that we want to promote, and that includes looking at it through the lens of LGBTQI+ rights,” Gorordo commented.
Notably, one LGBTQ+-inclusive project entails the World Bank International Finance Corporation’s $275 million (approximately £219 million) loan to Banco Davivienda in Colombia, which helps finance advisory services for LGBTQ+ individuals and the creation of specific banking products for them. In 2023, the board approved $200 million (approximately £159 million) for the Program for Universal Primary Healthcare Coverage and Resilience, which aims to enhance healthcare quality for LGBTQ+ individuals in Chile.
The World Bank’s EQOSOGI Project has gathered LGBTQ+-specific data on legal and practice-based disparities in 16 countries, and plans to broaden its efforts to additional nations in 2024. The Bank is also extending its research into the economic impacts of discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.
Initial studies in Serbia and North Macedonia revealed that both countries could see a .6 percent annual GDP growth if LGBTQ+ people faced reduced discrimination at work. A forthcoming study will focus on Brazil and is expected to be released later in the year.
“There’s always more we can do,” Gorordo told the Blade. “What we believe we need to do, again, using our convening power and our voice and our vote is to help build because in the end we are still a demand-driven organization.”
“We need to use our research and the data, in my opinion, our opinion, to help generate the demand for LGBTQI rights to be enshrined in our safeguards, in our strategies and in every single one of our products and the data speaks for itself,” he added.
Gorordo also revealed that the bank will soon introduce a new gender strategy acknowledging gender as nonbinary.
“That’s a big step,” he said.
He described World Bank President Ajay Banga as “a champion of the rights of all, including LGBTQI+ people.” Yet, he admitted facing “some pushback from certain constituencies that have different views and opinions than ours” regarding the new gender strategy and the support for LGBTQ+ rights.
“I see it as my responsibility to not just advocate for it in the board room or with management, but also using my office and chair to meet with other chairs bilaterally, to make the case for it, to try and bring folks along with us,” he concluded.
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