By Gift Briton
The Gates Foundation has announced a $200 billion commitment to be deployed over the next 20 years, doubling its funding and accelerating its plan to close operations by 2045.
The money will largely be spent on ending preventable deaths of mothers and babies, ensuring the next generation grows up without having to suffer from deadly infectious diseases and lifting millions of people out of poverty, putting them on a path to prosperity.
“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,” Bill Gates declared yesterday, marking the Foundation’s 25th anniversary with what amounts to be the largest philanthropic commitment in modern history.
The Foundation will now sunset in 2045 rather than 20 years after Gates’ death, as previously planned. This accelerated timeline comes at a critical moment when global health progress has stagnated or even reversed in some regions, particularly across Africa.
For millions of Africans, this funding surge represents more than just numbers on a spreadsheet. It’s about expanded access to life-saving vaccines, reduced maternal and infant mortality, and economic pathways out of extreme poverty.
“The needs at this time are greater than any we’ve seen in the lifetime of the Foundation, but the achievements of the past 25 years have shown the tremendous progress that is still possible,” said Mark Suzman, CEO and board member of the Gates Foundation.
Since 2000, the Foundation has been instrumental in saving 82 million lives worldwide through its support of organisations like Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria – with a significant portion of those lives saved in Africa, where these diseases have historically taken their heaviest toll.
In Nigeria, Gates-funded initiatives helped the country achieve wild polio virus-free status in 2020 after decades of battling the disease. The foundation invested over $1.6 billion in polio eradication efforts across Africa, working with local health systems to reach children in remote regions.
The foundation’s malaria programs have significantly reduced child mortality across sub-Saharan Africa. In countries like Tanzania and Mozambique, malaria death rates among children under five decreased by more than 40% in areas where Gates-supported interventions were implemented between 2010 and 2020.
“Each breakthrough is yet another chance to make someone’s life better,” Gates wrote in his announcement, emphasising the Foundation’s continued commitment to technological innovation in solving global challenges.
With this doubled funding- a rise from $100 billion spent in the last 25 years- African health systems stand to benefit from a new wave of innovations in several key areas, including maternal and infant mortality reduction, infectious disease elimination, digital public infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI) applications in healthcare, and women empowerment.
The announcement comes at a crucial time when many wealthy nations have announced cuts to international aid budgets. The World Health Organisation (WHO) recently reported that progress toward the health-related Sustainable Development Goals in Africa has slowed dramatically post-pandemic, with some indicators showing reversal.
“The work of making the world better is and always has been a group effort,” Gates noted, acknowledging the crucial role of partnerships in achieving sustainable impact.
As the Foundation plans to distribute approximately $9 billion annually starting next year, African health ministries, research institutions, and community organisations are preparing for a potentially transformative influx of resources to address longstanding challenges in maternal health, infectious disease, and poverty reduction.
For a continent where nearly 400 million people still live in extreme poverty and where a child is almost 14 times more likely to die before age five than in high-income countries, this accelerated timeline and doubled commitment represent not just financial support, but an urgent statement about what’s possible within a single generation.
