HQ Team
September 23, 2025: Billionaire Bill Gates has pledged $912 million over three years, starting next year, to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
The foundation’s latest pledge brings its total commitments to the Global Fund to $4.9 billion since 2002, making it one of the foundation’s largest investments, according to a statement.
“Humanity is at a crossroads. With millions of children’s lives on the line, global leaders have a once-in-a-generation chance to do something extraordinary,” said Gates during the 2025 Goalkeepers event, a campaign to accelerate progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
“The choices they make now—whether to go forward with proposed steep cuts to health aid or to give the world’s children the chance they deserve to live a healthy life—will determine what kind of future we leave the next generation.”
Funding cuts
In 2025, donor countries facing domestic challenges, high debt levels, and ageing populations made dramatic funding cuts to global development assistance for health (DAH).
According to a study by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, global DAH fell by 21% between 2024 and 2025, and is now at a 15-year low.
If the current cuts hold, they threaten decades of progress that saw child mortality cut in half since 2000—from 10 million children to less than 5 million children a year—one of humanity’s greatest achievements.
“What’s happening to the health of the world’s children is worse than most people realise, but our long-term prospects are better than most people can imagine,” said Gates.
‘I am optimistic’
“I don’t expect most governments to restore foreign aid to historic levels suddenly, but I am an optimist, and I believe governments can and will do what’s needed to save as many children as possible,” he said.
The Global Fund has a roadmap for saving “millions of children and making some of the deadliest childhood diseases history by 2045,” Gates said. “I’m urging world leaders to invest in the health of all people, especially children, to deliver this future.”
The Gates Foundation had earlier announced that it would spend $200 billion over the next 20 years, working with its partners to make as much progress as possible towards three primary goals: end preventable deaths of moms and babies; ensure the next generation grows up without having to suffer from deadly infectious diseases; and lift millions of people out of poverty, putting them on a path to prosperity.
Gates had also announced that at the end of 20 years, the foundation will close its operations.
