The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plans to direct $140 million over the next four years to “African institutions and leaders that accelerate progress toward ending malaria and neglected tropical diseases,” as well as to those working to help the continent recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, Melinda French Gates announced Thursday at the Kigali Summit on Malaria and Neglected Tropical Diseases in Rwanda.
The foundation is also launching a new philanthropic fund to support country-led efforts to eradicate NTDs as part of a collaboration with the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation and The ELMA Philanthropies, French Gates said at the summit, which is being held on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, where leaders from 54 countries will discuss development and other global issues.
Other plans announced by the foundation include support for a new mentorship program with the World Health Organization for women leaders in NTD elimination efforts. The initiative is named after the late Mwelecele Ntuli Malecela, the former director of WHO’s Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases who died in February.
The Gates Foundation said the new commitments build on the approximately $300 million that it has spent on fighting NTDs in the past three years. French Gates urged other donors to similarly increase their funding commitments.
“Funding for malaria and NTDs has plateaued,” she said in her prepared remarks.
“Malaria deaths are rising. And while amazing new tools and treatments are emerging, they may not reach those who need them most. We have to do more. And when I say we, I mean all of us,” she added. “No nation or organization can do this work alone.”
French Gates urged world leaders to sign a declaration aimed at eradicating, eliminating, or controlling NTDs by 2030 and to increase funding for the three-year replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
“Reaching the [Global Fund’s] $18 billion target will reduce malaria cases by two-thirds and eliminate the disease from six more countries by 2026,” French Gates tweeted Thursday.
Ahead of the Kigali Summit, the Gates Foundation’s Trevor Mundel told Devex that public health programs must get back on track to reach NTD reduction targets after the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mundel, who serves as the foundation’s president of global health, said that additional funding is needed to deploy “transformative tools” such as the world’s first malaria vaccine — which was recommended for broad use by WHO last year — as well as drugs and insecticide-treated bed nets.
“African countries are leading the way,” said Philip Welkhoff, the malaria program director at the Gates Foundation, in a statement Thursday. “Strong partnerships and increased funding are needed to increase access to life-saving tools and bring next-generation technologies and innovations over the finish line, to save more lives and end these diseases.”
About the author
Stephanie Beasley@Steph_Beasley
Stephanie Beasley is a Senior Reporter at Devex, where she covers global philanthropy with a focus on regulations and policy. She is an alumna of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and Oberlin College and has a background in Latin American studies. She previously covered transportation security at POLITICO.
