Gates Foundation: 3 emerging funding priorities you should know

From eradicating infectious diseases to ending global hunger, no development challenge seems too big for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But what do some of the foundation’s latest and biggest grants say about its strategic direction and priorities? With annual spending pegged at over $3 billion per year, the Gates Foundation is the largest and most well-known private foundation in the world. The charity plays an instrumental role in setting the global development agenda, and the sheer scale of its grants — which range from $100,000 to more than $150 million — can be game-changing and catalytic for any cause or organization. Guided by a belief in the “transformative power of technology and science”, the Seattle-based philanthropy usually funds innovative initiatives aimed at tackling persistent global health and development problems. But what really sets the foundation apart is its data-centered grant-making: Development strategies and interventions are selected and designed based on a rigorous, results-driven approach. To get a better sense of the latest priorities driving the Gateses’ global giving, Devex decided to dig into the numbers. Using the Gates Foundation’s online database, we took a closer look at the biggest global development grants — $5 million and above — disbursed in 2015. Below are three emerging funding trends that we’ve uncovered. Integrated health solutions Innovation continues to underpin the foundation’s health strategies and investments. The foundation recently awarded $27 million — its second-largest grant for 2015 — to FHI 360 to support research of new contraceptive methods that can prevent both pregnancy and HIV acquisition. Also, several major grants this year are designed to support research and development, particularly with regard to HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis, rotavirus, pneumonia and Ebola. But after spending 15 years developing vaccines, drugs and diagnostics for a range of diseases, the Gates Foundation now appears dedicated to the other half of the healthcare equation: delivery. In 2013, the foundation launched an integrated delivery strategy — one of more than two dozen across the organization — to “accelerate the delivery and increase the impact of the foundation’s investments in drugs, diagnostics, and other products and services that improve the lives of people in the developing world.” The relatively new area of focus for the foundation is evident in the $71.9 million grant in support of a disease surveillance network across sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Representing the largest single grant of 2015, funding is intended to help developing countries collect better data on the ebb and flow of childhood deaths and illnesses — an important first step toward building effective country health systems and delivering adequate primary health care. Speaking on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Gates announced the launching of the Primary Health Care Performance Initiative in collaboration with the World Bank and the World Health Organization. The initiative, which will take the form of a global partnership, will aim to enhance, standardize and share data on primary health care performance across 135 countries. Increased emphasis on reproductive health — a complex problem which doesn’t easily lend itself to simple, technical strategies — is another sign that the foundation is gradually expanding its global health strategy. Along with empowering women and girls, Melinda Gates has made family planning a key focus of her philanthropic work. The agriculture-nutrition nexus Agricultural development is a longtime funding priority of the Gates Foundation. With major grants ranging from $5 million to $25 million, the foundation remains one of the top contributors to high-impact, technological advances aimed at enhancing the livelihoods of poor farmers, including new vaccines against livestock diseases, highly resistant crop varieties and better data analytics. But in an effort to cultivate cross-sectoral synergies, the foundation’s agricultural programming is increasingly branching out to include nutrition and gender. At the European Development Days, co-chair Melinda Gates pledged to spend $776 million worth of grants and investments over the next six years to fight malnutrition around the globe. This new strategy not only means more money for an array of nutrition-related interventions — such as breast-feeding or food fortification — it has already opened up a number of funding opportunities for projects that can leverage agriculture to improve nutritional, gender and health outcomes. Climate change adaptation Bill Gates has personally committed to investing $2 billion in renewable energy projects. But when it comes to his foundation’s work, the tech entrepreneur envisions “bending the curve” in the fight against climate change through agricultural technologies. Through a $25 million envelope, the third largest of 2015, the foundation will help develop improved varieties of legumes that can withstand drought, floods, disease and insects. As an example, the foundation has endorsed inventions such as “scuba” rice, a variety of rice that can survive two weeks underwater, as a way to help small farmers adapt to extreme weather and environmental conditions. It appears the foundation will continue to value agricultural projects which integrate a climate change adaptation component. In his widely read annual letter, Gates points to farming innovations — especially ultraresistant seeds and highly-productive crops — as a proven solution to help the most vulnerable better cope with climate change. The philanthropist also recently chose to publicly back genetically modified organisms as a means to help poor farmers adapt to the harsh realities of climate change and improve their diets. Check out more insights and analysis for global development leaders like you, and sign up as an Executive Member to receive the information you need for your organization to thrive.