Gates Foundation largest ever budget of $ 8.6 bn backs health innovations

22 / 01 / 2024

By Marwa Nassar - -

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced its largest ever annual budget of $ 8.6 billion to support health innovations and save millions of lives as global health budgets in decline overall.

The budget, which represents an increase of 4% over last year and is a $2 billion increase over the 2021 budget, comes as global contributions to health in the lowest-income countries are stalling. While overall aid spending has leveled off, sub-Saharan African countries saw a nearly 8% decline in aid in 2022, even as they face growing needs and shrinking budgets due to debt and other financial pressures. The foundation has committed to increasing its annual spending to $9 billion by 2026.

“We can’t talk about the future of humanity without talking about the future of health,” said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation. “Every day, newborn babies and young children die simply because of where they were born. Mothers die giving birth, leaving families devastated. That keeps me up at night. It’s unacceptable, particularly because we have already developed many of the solutions that could save their lives. Building a stronger, more stable world starts with good health.”

Since its inception in 2000, the Gates Foundation has been focused on fighting the world’s greatest inequities, creating programs that address issues such as gender equality, agricultural development, and public education. A major focus for the foundation has been on reducing inequities in health by funding the development of new tools and strategies to reduce the burden of infectious diseases and the leading causes of child mortality in low-income countries. Thanks to strong commitments, the world has made tremendous progress in cutting child deaths from more than 9.3 million a year in 2000 to 4.6 million a year in 2022. Deaths from malaria and HIV were cut in half during the past two decades, and wild polio, which was paralyzing 350,000 children a year, has been reduced to only 12 cases in two countries.

“An investment in global health is an investment in our future. When the world puts money behind proven solutions, it builds stronger, healthier, and more resilient communities for generations to come,” said Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the Gates Foundation. “With low-income countries facing a whole host of challenges, now is the right time to recommit to saving lives and improving livelihoods.”

Despite the phenomenal progress, millions of children in poor countries still die before their fifth birthday of preventable or treatable diseases, and nearly 300,000 women die in childbirth while the tools exist to prevent their deaths. Ninety percent of the 340,000 women who die every year of cervical cancer live in low- and middle-income countries, even though there’s now a highly effective one-dose vaccine that can protect them against it.

“The Gates Foundation measures impact in terms of lives saved and opportunities provided to the poorest,” said Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman. “This new high-water mark for our budget will further our mission to help create a world where everyone has the opportunity to live a healthy, productive life.”

The incremental resources for 2024, both financial and human capital, seek to accelerate efforts for greatest impact across the foundation’s diverse priorities, ranging from polio eradication to scaling child azithromycin delivery in the world’s highest mortality settings to improving digital courseware in postsecondary education to accelerating the world’s TB drug portfolio.