The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $912 million to the Global Fund over the next three years, emphasizing the urgent need for governments and donors to reinvest in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria at a time when global health funding is in decline.
Announcing the commitment at the 2025 Goalkeepers event, held on the sidelines of the 80th United Nations General Assembly in New York, Bill Gates described the Global Fund as “one of the most impactful health initiatives in history.” He highlighted its track record of saving more than 70 million lives since 2002 and cutting deaths from the three diseases by more than 60 percent.
The new commitment brings the Gates Foundation’s total support for the Fund to $4.9 billion since its inception. According to Gates, every dollar invested delivers an estimated $19 in health and economic returns, making the Fund one of the most cost-effective tools available to governments.
“With millions of lives at stake, the decisions made over the next three years will determine whether the world sustains progress, curbs HIV, TB, and malaria, and strengthens global health security,” Gates said. He urged governments, philanthropists, and the private sector to rally behind the Fund’s Eighth Replenishment drive, co-hosted by South Africa and the United Kingdom, which is scheduled to close in November.
Gates warned that declining donor commitments are threatening decades of progress. Citing data from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), he revealed that global development assistance for health fell by 21 percent between 2024 and 2025—the steepest decline in 15 years. Without renewed investment, he cautioned, child mortality, which has already dropped by half since 2000, could rise again.
Despite shrinking budgets, Gates said the path forward is clear: sustained financing, stronger primary healthcare systems, and bold investments in breakthrough innovations. Recent advances include new malaria-prevention tools, single-dose malaria treatments, long-acting HIV medicines, maternal vaccines, and the use of artificial intelligence to accelerate access to drugs and diagnostics.
“An entire generation is alive today because of global generosity and smart investments. But to secure the future, we must go further so that by 2045, diseases like AIDS, TB, and malaria are no longer among the leading killers of children,” he said.
The Goalkeepers event drew more than 1,000 leaders from government, philanthropy, and business, with a central message that global health is at a crossroads. Gates stressed that leaders must decide whether to retreat from commitments or seize what he described as a “once-in-a-generation opportunity” to make preventable child deaths a relic of the past.
-
Gates Foundation Pledges $912m to Global fund to Fight Deadly Diseases
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $912 million to the Global Fund over the next three years, emphasizing the urgent need for
