Interactive: Gates Foundation's 2019 funding trends and COVID-19 response

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been at the frontline of the coronavirus conversation. Over $250 million in funding has been announced by the Gates Foundation to support the response. This covers support for government preparedness and response as well as innovative approaches to detect and treat the deadly virus. South Asia and Africa are priority regions for the foundation, with insight into the recipients of these funds slowly emerging in the Gates Foundation’s grantmaking database, which currently contains data up to March this year. The database provides insight into $61.1 billion in grants awarded to 6,161 recipients and over 21,000 initiatives since 1995. With the average 2020 grant value at $2.5 million, COVID-19’s impact could mean a year of higher financial investment compared to 2018 and 2019. The 2019 trends 2019 saw the Gates Foundation award 1,851 grants worth $3.3 billion — an increase in the 2018 numbers. 1,170 unique grantee recipients were identified in the data covering 65 countries — the largest geographic spread of recipients throughout the history of the Gates Foundation. Botswana was a new region supported in 2019 with the Dialogue Group awarded $4.8 million for an anti-smoking advocacy campaign. The Central African Republic also became a new recipient through a grant to the World Health Organization’s immunization programs. And in Madagascar, the Pasteur Institute became the country's first Gates grantee with a program to support the identification of bat-derived viruses. The total share for the U.S. — the largest origin country for grantees — dropped slightly from 58% in 2018 to 56% in 2019. A total of $1.9 billion in grants were awarded to 762 organizations based here. Switzerland ($283 million) and the United Kingdom ($258 million) were also top recipients for grantees maintaining a geographic trend identified in the 2018 data. Global health programs continued to be the funding priority with 563 grants supporting $1.3 billion worth of investments. Maternal health programs received $215 million of this, and enteric and diarrheal diseases, $196 million. Polio received a boost in funding from $87 million in 2018 to $213 million in 2019. A large grant of $50 million was awarded to the Islamic Development Bank to support polio eradication in Pakistan, and $41 million was awarded to Biological E. Limited to support affordable vaccines. Funding for neglected tropical diseases also increased with $100 million supporting the work of 21 grantees — including $24.7 million awarded to Washington University and $20 million awarded to the University of Tampere. In other funding priorities, education programs received a boost in 2019, increasing from an investment of $267 million in 2018 to $432 million for 294 grantees — including $15 million each for the Eskolta School Research and Design Inc and KIPP Foundation to support evidence-based interventions to improve student achievements in the U.S. In 2019, the Gates Foundation grants ranged from $500 to $75 million continuing their investment in organizations that can support change both big and small. Top grantees for 2019 The top-ranked grant recipient in 2019 was WHO. It received $181 million as part of 31 grants supporting global development, global health, advocacy, and global growth. Their largest was a $33.2 million grant supporting malaria programs, followed by $26.5 million for polio and $25.8 million for research that aims to improve outcomes for pregnancies at risk of preterm birth. WHO has been an annual grant recipient since 1999, with its largest funding year in 2008 — a year it received $760 million. The Nigerian government was a first time recipient in 2019, but a single grant worth $75 million made it the second-largest grantee for 2019. The health-focused grant aims to support the country over five years through its transition from Gavi by providing additional financing for its primary health care system. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was the third-largest grantee, receiving $66.6 million for 18 projects announced in 2019 supporting global development, global growth, and advocacy work. Its largest grant was $20.7 million to establish an anchor trust fund for the World Bank, with a focus on health and human capital, followed by $10 million supporting access to financial services. UNICEF became the fourth-largest grantee thanks to 11 programs worth $66 million with a focus on polio and maternal health. And PATH rounded out the top five thanks to 23 programs worth $61 million. Of the 1,170 grant recipients in 2019, the top five received 14% of the total grant value awarded for the year. Trends in COVID-19 The impact of COVID-19 is not yet fully evident in the grants database with just 14 grants targeting COVID-19 directly. Only $16.7 million of the announced funding in excess of $250 million had been allocated, as of March. Gates’ COVID-19 response so far supports discovery and translational science, emergency response, innovative technology solutions, public awareness, research and learning, and vaccine development. The largest grant so far has been $7 million to WHO to build its surge capacity to detect and respond to COVID-19. An additional $2.5 million is going to its African office in order to strengthen public health emergency preparedness and response. Africa has been a focal region for the Gates Foundation response so far, not just in supporting the WHO regional office but also in granting $3 million to the African Field Epidemiology Network for COVID-19 detection and containment on the continent. Other work targeting Africa includes a near $1 million grant to New York-based Vital Strategies to strengthen epidemic preparedness capacity in the African region, and $500,000 for New York-based ALIMA to help strengthen health ministry capacities in Senegal and Cameroon. Other COVID-19 grants awarded include support for innovation of vaccine and testing, and data modeling to support evidence-based decision-making for governments. But there is a range of initiatives supporting associated work, including support for a meeting on cross-learning experience human and animal vaccine licensure based on technology platforms; acceleration of access to medical supplies; understanding barriers in the pharmaceutical and medical equipment supply chain, and advocacy for global health and development among key U.S. decision-makers. The March data suggests that the foundation is set for a bigger funding year than 2019. March grants are 7% higher than the same time last year, and grant value is 26% higher than March 2018. Data for April may show whether funding will rival the peak of $5.9 billion awarded in 2019. Interacting with the data Devex has collated the data from the Gates Foundation grants database in an updated tableau interactive. Find out how and to whom the foundation awards its grants. View and interact with the data. 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