Bill Gates Pledges Nearly $1 Bn to Global Health Fund

The Gates Foundation’s pledge matches its donation in 2022, which was the last time the Global Fund, a Geneva-based independent non-profit, raised money on its three-year budget cycle.

The Gates Foundation has announced to infuse more than $900 million into the global fight against diseases like HIV and malaria. The donation comes as the United States has cut more than $10 billion in foreign and humanitarian aid.

The Gates Foundation will give US$912 million (S$1 billion) to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, philanthropist Bill Gates, as he urged governments to reverse global health funding cuts.

Speaking at a recent event, Gates said the world was at a crossroads, with millions of children at risk of dying if funding drops too steeply. The Gates Foundation’s pledge matches its donation in 2022, which was the last time the Global Fund, a Geneva-based independent non-profit, raised money on its three-year budget cycle.

The announcement follows deep aid cuts from governments around the world, led by the United States. “A kid born in northern Nigeria has a 15 per cent chance of dying before the age of five. You can either be part of improving that or act like that doesn’t matter,” Gates said.

“I am not capable of making up what the government cuts, and I don’t want to create an illusion of that,” he said about his pledge.

The Gates Foundation, the philanthropy started by the Microsoft co-founder and his then wife in 2000, is one of the world’s biggest funders of global health initiatives, with a focus on ending preventable deaths of mothers and babies, tackling infectious diseases, and lifting millions out of poverty.

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