With global aid shrinking and health inequalities widening, the Gates Foundation is stepping in with a $200 billion promise to rewrite the future of global health—starting now
The Gates Foundation has committed to donating $200 billion (over Ksh25 trillion) in the next 20 years to accelerate progress on saving and improving lives, especially for people in low and middle-income countries across the world.
While making the announcement from the Foundation’s headquarters in Seattle, Washington, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Mark Suzman said the decision “marks a major acceleration in the foundation’s work and sets a new date of 2045 to sunset its operations.”
Suzman noted that the financial donation, which is the largest philanthropic commitment in modern history, will help all people across the globe live healthy, productive lives.
The donation comes at a critical time when the US government under President Donald Trump cut foreign aid budgets by over 90 per cent, amounting to $54 billion (Over Ksh7.8 trillion), and causing distressing ripples to countries that were reliant on aid, with majority of the cuts targeting foreign aid contracts awarded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
And while critical programs like food assistance, life-saving treatments for diseases like HIV, Tuberculosis and Malaria are still ongoing, the ripple effects of the foreign aid cuts cannot be ignored.
Suzman said that while the donation may not entirely fill the gap left by aid cuts, it will help accelerate efforts amidst multiple years of stagnant or, in some cases, backsliding progress on global health metrics. This, he said, will be made possible by implementing more than 100 innovations, including vaccines, diagnostic tools, and treatments designed with the support of the Foundation to meet the needs of people living in low- and middle-income countries.
In the next two decades, the Gates Foundation will be focused on achieving three primary goals, which are ending preventable deaths of mothers and babies; ensuring the next generation grows up free from deadly infectious diseases; and lifting millions of people out of poverty.
“I will give away virtually all my wealth through the Gates Foundation over the next 20 years to the cause of saving and improving lives around the world,” said Foundation chair Bill Gates in a release made on the foundation’s 25th anniversary. “There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people. That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned.”
The philanthropist noted that during the first 25 years, the Foundation donated more than $100 billion with the support of Warren Buffet. In this time, child deaths were halved, deaths from deadly infectious diseases were significantly reduced, and hundreds of millions of people were taken out of poverty.
He noted that since 2000, the Gates Foundation has contributed to saving 82 million lives through its support of Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The next 20-year timeline and historic financial commitment will enable the foundation to further its work, with additional focus on strengthening digital public infrastructure, applying new uses of artificial intelligence to accelerate the quality and reach of services, and to lift up women, their families, and their communities by advancing gender equality in education, healthcare, and financial services.
