A newborn child in northern Nigeria faces a 15 percent chance of dying before reaching the age of five, philanthropist Bill Gates has warned. He urged governments to reverse reductions in global health funding, stressing that millions of young lives are at stake.
Speaking at a news event in New York, Gates said the world is at a crossroads — with the potential for either saving or losing millions of children depending on how leaders act. “You can either be part of improving that or act like that doesn’t matter,” he stated. His remarks came ahead of the Gates Foundation’s annual Goalkeepers gathering.
The Gates Foundation announced plans to contribute $912 million to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. This comes at a time when many governments, including the United States, have scaled back health aid.
On the funding cuts, Gates said:
“I am not capable of making up what the government cuts, and I don’t want to create an illusion of that.”
Founded in 2000 by Gates and his then-wife, the Gates Foundation is one of the world’s largest funders of global health. Its work focuses on preventing maternal and child deaths, fighting infectious diseases, and tackling poverty. Earlier this year, Gates pledged to donate nearly his entire fortune of about $200 billion by 2045, adding that he would accelerate the timeline due to urgent needs.
Data shows that global development assistance fell by 21 percent between 2024 and 2025, hitting a 15-year low. Gates warned that if this decline continues, decades of progress in cutting child mortality — saving about five million lives per year since 2000 — could be undone.
He stressed that there is still an opportunity to save millions of lives and eliminate deadly childhood diseases before 2045. Achieving this, he said, will depend on sustained support for global health organizations such as the Global Fund and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, as well as strengthening primary healthcare and rolling out new innovations like the long-acting HIV prevention drug lenacapavir.
“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,” Gates remarked. He highlighted that while many countries have cut aid, Spain recently increased its contributions — raising donations to the Global Fund by 12 percent and to Gavi by 30 percent.
