ILGA-Europe is a driving force for political, legal, and social change in Europe and Central Asia. Their vision is of a world where dignity, freedoms, and full enjoyment of human rights are protected and ensured to everyone regardless of their actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics.

ILGA-Europe is an independent, international non-governmental umbrella organisation bringing together over 600 organisations from 54 countries in Europe and Central Asia. They are part of the wider international ILGA organisation, but ILGA-Europe were established as a separate region of ILGA and an independent legal entity in 1996. ILGA itself was created in 1978.

ILGA-Europe’s mission is:

• - To act as a European voice for the rights of those who face discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientations, gender identity and/or gender expression, and sex characteristics.
• - To achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and intersex people and to ensure protection from human rights violations, discrimination, and violence based on sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression and sex characteristics in Europe and Central Asia by instigating legal, political, institutional and social change.  
• - To empower LGBTI organisations and their allies to advocate for the effective enjoyment of human rights by everyone irrespective of their sexual orientations, gender identity, and or gender expression or sex characteristics and to advocate for full LGBTI equality and inclusion in society.

The three main pillars of ILGA-Europe work are:

1. advocating for human rights and equality for LGBTI people at the European level, before organisations such as the European Union, the Council of Europe and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in particular in relation to asylum, hate crime, and hate speech, education, employment, family, freedom of assembly, association and expression, health, legal gender recognition, and bodily integrity. 

2. strategic litigation by using European courts to advance the rights of LGBTI people, usually as part of a wider advocacy campaign. The use of European courts to ensure full recognition and implementation of human rights for everyone – irrespective of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or sex characteristics – is one of the key working methods of ILGA-Europe to achieve full equality for LGBTI people in Europe. 

3. strengthening the LGBTI movement in Europe and Central Asia by providing training and support to its member organisations and other LGBTI groups on advocacy, fundraising, organisational development, and strategic communications, and much more.