Bill Gates has warned that private philanthropy cannot compensate for cuts to foreign aid budgets, including those proposed by US President Donald Trump. Speaking ahead of the UN General Assembly, the billionaire philanthropist said the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spends just over $3bn a year on development assistance, roughly one-tenth of the US aid budget and one-fiftieth of the global total. “We don’t have some special stash that we keep in case some government is less generous,” he told the Guardian.
Gates noted that the foundation is already spending at maximum capacity, and that significant government cuts would lead to a rise in preventable deaths. “If net, from all governments as a whole, you get big cuts, there’s no other sector that has fair capacity to step up,” he said. The US is the largest global aid donor, but Trump has proposed a 32% cut to foreign aid, including a $1bn reduction to the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar).
Rather than focusing on the White House, Gates has engaged with Congress and executive branch officials, including national security adviser HR McMaster and defence secretary James Mattis, to stress the importance of aid for global security. He highlighted discussions on polio eradication in conflict zones such as Nigeria, Syria, and Pakistan-Afghanistan. “I think that dialogue has been constructive,” he said.
Gates expressed cautious optimism about Congress, which appears aware of the significance of maintaining aid. “We increased the amount of time we’re spending talking with Congress, because things very much hang in the balance,” he said. He added that the legislative view of development aid is stronger than might be expected given the executive branch’s stance.
New research from the Gates Foundation and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows that extreme poverty and child deaths have halved in recent decades, but warns that progress will reverse if aid is cut. A 10% reduction in global HIV treatment funding could result in over 5 million additional deaths by 2030. “HIV is the most dramatic [example], where even a modest [funding] cut leads to a huge number of additional deaths,” Gates said.
