Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation are raising concerns about the dire impact of reduced international funding on global health. Reduced budgets are projected to reverse decades of progress, leading to an increase in the number of children dying before their fifth birthday for the first time this century. An estimated 4.8 million children are expected to die this year, an increase of 200,000 deaths over last year.
“It’s something we hope never to report, but it’s a sad truth. And there are many reasons for this, but clearly a key reason is the significant reduction in international development aid from several high-income countries,” Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said in a briefing with the media this week.
Suzman specifically called on the US, UK, France and Germany to make “significant cuts” in their support. Internationally, funding fell 26.9% below last year’s level, according to the charity.
The Gates Foundation today released its annual Goalkeeper Report, which tracks progress on measures including poverty, hunger, access to clean water and energy, environmental standards and other metrics.
The Seattle-based foundation worked with the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation to model the effects of reduced aid. Researchers found that if aid cuts continue or worsen, an additional 12 million to 16 million children could die over the next 20 years.
While offering dire predictions, the document aims to be a call to action for governments and philanthropists large and small.
“This report is a roadmap to progress,” Gates wrote, “where smart spending meets innovation at scale.”
The billionaire Microsoft co-founder called out some specific areas that could benefit the most, including primary health care, routine immunizations, the development of advanced vaccines and new uses of data.
Modeling in the report predicts that by 2045, better vaccines for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and pneumonia could save 3.4 million children, while new malaria tools could save an additional 5.7 million. A shot of lencapavir can successfully prevent and treat HIV.
As US Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr. continued, the foundation focused on the life-saving benefits of immunization. Undercut Public support for vaccines.
Against a backdrop of cuts in federal funding for humanitarian causes worldwide and backpedaling on vaccinations, Gates announced plans earlier this year to give away $200 billion — with nearly all of his wealth — over the next two decades through the Gates Foundation.
The Seattle-based company, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, will sunset its operations on December 31, 2045. The philanthropy is the world’s largest and has already distributed $100 billion since its inception
If we do more with less now — and return to a world with more resources to devote to children’s health — then in 20 years, we will be able to tell a different kind of story,” Gates wrote in the report. “The Story of How We Helped More Babies Survive Childbirth and Childhood.”