We want to improve the participation of French-speaking activists in the ILGA World Conference. Here’s how we are doing it

With the 2024 ILGA World Conference only a few months away, we are actively working to improve the participation of French-speaking activists in the event. Why are we doing it?

Language accessibility matters. As our Accessing Connection report on the LGBTI digital divide points out, the lack of language localisation poses barriers to LGBTI people, potentially hindering meaningful and truly understandable access to information.

In 2022, people from 111 countries and territories joined us in Long Beach, California, United States for our World Conference. It is safe to assume that for most of them, English or Spanish – the official languages of ILGA World – are not their native languages.

Offering equal access into every language present at our World Conference is, unfortunately, beyond our current capacity and resources. However, we can still make things better for a large part of our global family! As our World Conference returns to Africa in 2024 – a continent in which at least 26 countries have French as their official or co-official language — we are building systems to facilitate the participation of activists from these countries and more Francophone jurisdictions worldwide. This is how we are doing it.

A version in French of the conference registration form is available: you can follow this link to download it.

Individuals who submit their conference registration in French can complete the downloadable form and either:

• use that document as a guide and input your response directly into the main web form
• submit it over email to 2024(a)worldconference(dot)ilga(dot)org with “Inscription en français // French Registration” in the subject line.

Those submitting the registration through the online form can then pay the conference fee by PayPal or bank transfer. Submissions received through email will receive instructions to pay their conference fee by bank transfer after receipt of the submission form.

We will provide live interpretation in French — as well as in English and Spanish — for all the plenary sessions of the 2024 ILGA World Conference. We will work with interpreters who are aware of the nuances of LGBTI human rights terminology to create the most accurate experience for Francophone participants.

In cooperation with host organisations Iranti and Gender DynamiX, ILGA World is actively working to ensure human rights defenders across Africa are supported with scholarships to attend the World Conference.

Nous nous réjouissons de vous voir à  à la Conference de ILGA World!