MULTILATERAL
ADVOCACY

United Nations, African Union, and ECOWAS spaces are where laws are shaped, norms are set, and the frameworks that govern LGBTQI+ lives are written or erased. We refuse to treat access to them as neutral.

MULTILATERAL ADVOCACY

Multilateral spaces like the United Nations, the African Union, and ECOWAS are where laws get shaped, norms get set, and the international frameworks that govern the lives of LGBTQI+ people get written or erased. These rooms matter. Which is exactly why we refuse to treat access to them as neutral.

CHEVS engages with multilateral and transnational advocacy spaces not as a performance of legitimacy, but as an extension of the movements we are rooted in. We go to these spaces along with the voices and demands of frontline activists — people who are rarely in the room, often because the room was not designed for them.

HOW WE ENGAGE

Our multilateral advocacy operates at three levels simultaneously.

01 Global level

At the international level, we engage with UN mechanisms including the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process, and human rights treaty bodies to ensure that the realities of LGBTQI+ people in Africa are visible in global deliberations, and that states are held accountable to their international commitments.

02 Continental level

At the continental level, we work alongside African feminist and LGBTQI+ coalitions to engage the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) and the African Union. We advance rights frameworks, challenge discriminatory laws, and push for implementation of existing protections — including the Maputo Protocol and ACHPR Resolution 275, which affirms the protection of individuals from violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

03 Sub-regional level

At the regional level, we engage ECOWAS institutions and processes such as the ECOWAS Court to advocate for a West African human rights agenda that does not abandon its most marginalized people — especially when political winds blow against them.

WHY DO WE KEEP
SHOWING UP?

Showing up in multilateral spaces is not simple or straightforward for the communities we work with. Visa denials, racialised border enforcement, and the prohibitive cost of international travel mean that many of the most critical voices in our movements are systematically filtered out of the rooms where decisions are made. The people most affected by the policies being debated are the least likely to be present when they are debated.

We take that contradiction seriously. Our multilateral advocacy includes challenging the terms of participation itself — pushing convening institutions to design spaces that genuinely center those most at risk, not just those with the right passport. We document the barriers. We name them publicly. We insist they are not incidental — they are political.

WHAT THIS WORK
LOOKS LIKE IN PRACTICE

CHEVS participates in and prepares community stakeholders for major international advocacy moments. We produce briefings, shadow reports, and policy submissions that translate community realities into the language institutions respond to.

We build coalitions with allied organizations across the continent to amplify collective demands. And we bring back what we learn — connecting the global to the grassroots, ensuring that international processes inform and are informed by local organizing.

Our multilateral work is rooted in accountability to movements, not in visibility for its own sake.