Bill Gates-supported fund aims at maternal, newborn health in Africa

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) - A new Bill Gates-backed fund targets maternal and newborn health in Africa, the Gates Foundation has announced, explaining that the fund is backed mainly by philanthropy, at a time of declining donor government foreign aid budgets.

A new fund aimed at improving the survival of mothers and newborns in Africa was launched on Tuesday, backed by major philanthropic organisations including the Gates Foundation.

The Beginnings Fund, managed by an investments team based in Nairobi, plans to deploy $500 million over the next five years to help save more than 300,000 lives and provide quality care for 34 million women and newborns across sub-Saharan Africa

A recent report by the World Health Organization highlighted a 40% decline in maternal deaths globally between 2000 and 2023, with sub-Saharan Africa among those achieving significant progress. 

However, the region still accounted for 70% of maternal deaths globally as it continues to deal with high rates of poverty and conflict. This could be further exacerbated by recent cuts in humanitarian funding, which have forced some health facilities to close, led to the loss of health workers, and disrupted the supply of essential medicines and treatments for leading causes of maternal deaths, such as haemorrhage and preeclampsia.

According to a report from sources close to the billionaire philanthropist, Bill Gates is making the largest philanthropic donation in modern history, aiming to double the Gates Foundation’s budget over the next two decades. 

“He’s accelerating his giving to confront rising child mortality, disease, and poverty at a time when governments are retreating from aid,” it said.

Bill Gates is giving nearly everything away — accelerating his philanthropy and adding what the Gates Foundation calls the largest donation in modern history to double the foundation’s budget to $200 billion before it closes its doors in 2045.

“There are too many urgent problems to solve for me to hold onto resources that could be used to help people,” Gates said in a statement. “That is why I have decided to give my money back to society much faster than I had originally planned.”

Gates is targeting maternal and child health, infectious disease, education, and poverty — areas governments are abandoning. “2025 may be and is likely to be the first year of this century [that] preventable child mortality actually rises rather than declines,” says Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman. “And so we want to do everything we can to offset that.”

Still, Suzman was clear: Philanthropy can’t replace government aid. “We’re going to make as strong a case as possible … this is the highest-impact spending that any government can do.”

Gates, more blunt in an interview with The New York Times, says: “The reductions to U.S.A.I.D. are stunning … Nobody expected the executive branch to cut (the U.S. flagship HIV initiative) PEPFAR or polio money without the involvement of Congress.”

He plans to donate 99% of his fortune — currently $168 billion — leaving himself just $1.68 billion by age 90. “People will say a lot of things about me when I die, but I am determined that ‘he died rich’ will not be one of them.”

Before the big announcement, the Gates Foundation and other leading philanthropies unveiled a bold new initiative: the $500 million Beginnings Fund. Over the next five years, the fund aims to help save 300,000 mothers and newborns across 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Kenya, Nigeria, and Rwanda.

Run by a Nairobi-based team, the fund comes amid deep cuts to humanitarian aid that have forced clinics to close and disrupted care for life-threatening conditions like haemorrhage and preeclampsia. Despite a 40% drop in maternal deaths globally since 2000, sub-Saharan Africa still accounts for 70% of such deaths.

“These investments will advance maternal and newborn survival in high-burden hospitals, health centers, and referral networks, in which most maternal and newborn deaths – the majority of which are preventable – occur,” says the launch statement.

-0- PANA AR/MA 9May2025