NEW YORK, Sept. 22, 2025 (Muzicgh.com) — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will commit $912 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, matching its 2022 contribution, as Bill Gates warned that sharp cuts in government aid threaten decades of progress in child survival.
Speaking at a Reuters Newsmaker event, Gates said philanthropy can’t replace public funding and urged donors to reverse cuts that have driven global health financing to a multi-year low. ‘I am not capable of making up what the government cuts,’ he said, calling the moment a crossroads for child health.
Development assistance for health fell about 21% year-over-year from 2024 to 2025, hitting a 15-year low, according to tracking by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Analysts attribute much of the drop to retreating U.S. financing and knock-on effects across other donors.
Gates argued that the downturn risks eroding gains that halved under-five mortality since 2000, saving roughly 5 million lives each year. He cited stark inequities, noting that a child born in northern Nigeria faces about a 15% risk of dying before age five without continued progress.
The foundation’s push centers on sustaining core institutions such as the Global Fund and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, strengthening primary healthcare, and accelerating uptake of new tools, including long-acting HIV prevention like lenacapavir, to bend mortality curves faster.
The latest commitment also seeks to catalyze other donors ahead of the Global Fund’s next replenishment. With the new pledge, Gates Foundation lifetime commitments to the Global Fund total about $4.9 billion since 2002, the foundation said.
At the foundation’s Goalkeepers gathering in New York, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez received the Global Goalkeeper Award after Madrid raised its Global Fund support by about 12% and its Gavi contribution by 30%, bucking a broader trend of retrenchment. Sánchez urged the West not to trade away health spending for other priorities.
The Goalkeepers progress report on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, usually released at the event, was postponed to December in Abu Dhabi, when the outlook for global health funding should be clearer, organizers said.
Earlier this year, Gates reiterated his plan to donate most of his roughly $200 billion fortune by 2045, accelerated by what he called urgent global needs. “What’s happening to the health of the world’s children is worse than most people realize, but our long-term prospects are better than most people can imagine,” he said.
Source: Gates Foundation | Reuters
Development assistance for health fell about 21% year-over-year from 2024 to 2025, hitting a 15-year low, according to tracking by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). Analysts attribute much of the drop to retreating U.S. financing and knock-on effects across other donors.
Gates argued that the downturn risks eroding gains that halved under-five mortality since 2000, saving roughly 5 million lives each year. He cited stark inequities, noting that a child born in northern Nigeria faces about a 15% risk of dying before age five without continued progress.
The foundation’s push centers on sustaining core institutions such as the Global Fund and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, strengthening primary healthcare, and accelerating uptake of new tools, including long-acting HIV prevention like lenacapavir, to bend mortality curves faster.
The latest commitment also seeks to catalyze other donors ahead of the Global Fund’s next replenishment. With the new pledge, Gates Foundation lifetime commitments to the Global Fund total about $4.9 billion since 2002, the foundation said.
At the foundation’s Goalkeepers gathering in New York, Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez received the Global Goalkeeper Award after Madrid raised its Global Fund support by about 12% and its Gavi contribution by 30%, bucking a broader trend of retrenchment. Sánchez urged the West not to trade away health spending for other priorities.
The Goalkeepers progress report on the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, usually released at the event, was postponed to December in Abu Dhabi, when the outlook for global health funding should be clearer, organizers said.
Earlier this year, Gates reiterated his plan to donate most of his roughly $200 billion fortune by 2045, accelerated by what he called urgent global needs. “What’s happening to the health of the world’s children is worse than most people realize, but our long-term prospects are better than most people can imagine,” he said.
Source: Gates Foundation | Reuters
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