MANILA, Philippines โ Bill Gates marked the 25th anniversary of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with a sweeping announcement: the philanthropic giant will close its doors on December 31, 2045. In the next two decades, the foundation aims to disburse more than $200 billion to advance global health and human development โ a final push in a mission that has already transformed lives across the globe.
Since its inception in 2000, the foundation has committed over $100 billion to health, education, and poverty alleviation programs, especially in the Global South. With its eventual closure now on the horizon, Gates sees this final chapter as the most critical.
Gates: ‘Not Timely’
โYou could say this announcement is not very timely,โ Gates told The New York Times on Thursday, May 2. โOver the last 25 years, we achieved far more than I โ or I think anyone โ expected. The world invented new tools, we made them cheap, we got them out. We went from 10 million childhood deaths to five million.โ
He added, โOver the next 20 years, can you cut that in half again? The answer is: Absolutely.โ
But looming political headwinds, particularly cuts to U.S. foreign aid under former President Donald Trump, have tempered the billionaireโs hopes for consistent global progress.
โOn childhood deaths, which over the next few years should have gone from five million to four million โ now, unless thereโs a big reversal, weโll probably go from five million to six million,โ Gates said.
He pointed to the often invisible nature of the foundationโs success โ and the consequences of political decisions made far from the communities affected.
โYou have to go to Africa and see a malaria ward at the height of the malaria season. Or you have to see kids who are stunted,โ Gates said. โThey cut the money to Gaza Province in Mozambique. That is really for drugs, so mothers donโt give their babies HIV. But the people doing the cutting are so geographically illiterate, they think itโs Gaza and condoms.โ
Hopeful
Despite the setbacks, Gates remains hopeful that a shift in global leadership and priorities could correct course.
โI donโt think weโre going to have administration after administration who cuts and cuts and cuts and cuts these things. I see it as a four- to six-year interruption,โ he said. โAnd if we zoom out and think about 20 years from now โ I do think weโll cut childhood deaths, despite all this, because the Golden Rule was not repealed.โ
As the clock starts ticking on the foundationโs final 20 years, Gates said his faith in science โ and in people โ remains unshaken.
โMy optimism hasnโt been shaken,โ he said. โIf itโs brought to them, if they get to see it, people do care about childrenโs deaths. And science โ thank God science doesnโt go backward as we invent these tools.โ
The Gates Foundationโs farewell may be two decades away, but for Gates, the countdown has already begun โ not as an end, but as a determined sprint toward an audacious finish line.
