Bill Gates pledges $7 billion to Africa despite the Ukraine crisis

• The commitment is an increase of forty percent on the total amount spent over the course of the preceding four years.
• The largest portion of the pie will belong to Nigeria, which is the most populated country in Africa.
• Gates announced that the Gates Foundation would be establishing a regional office in Nairobi.

On Thursday, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced that they would be investing $7 billion to Africa over the next four years.

This announcement came after Bill Gates issued a warning that the crisis in Ukraine was lowering the amount of aid that was travelling to the continent.

The Foundation’s commitment, which is an increase of forty percent on the total amount spent over the course of the preceding four years, will be directed toward initiatives that combat issues related to hunger, disease, poverty, and gender inequality.

The largest portion of the pie will belong to Nigeria, which is the most populated country in Africa.

“If you take all aid (into Africa) including all climate aid — we’ll have a few years where it’ll probably go down.”

The current drought in Kenya and much of the rest of East Africa is the worst it has been in the last forty years.

Drought, compounded by conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic, has pushed more than 10 million people in the region “to the very brink of a hunger crisis”, the U.S.-based Christian relief group World Vision said this week.

The United Nations has indicated that it is preparing to declare famine in certain regions of Somalia this year.

Gates announced on Wednesday that the Gates Foundation would be establishing a regional office in Nairobi, Kenya, following a meeting with Kenyan President William Ruto the previous day.

“Our foundation will continue to support solutions in health, agriculture, and other critical areas—and the systems to get them out of the labs and to the people who need them,” Gates, who runs the foundation with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates, said in a statement.

The Foundation contributed $6.7 billion to charity causes in 2021 and made a commitment of $1.4 billion just last week to assist smallholder farmers all around the world in adapting to the effects of climate change.

Also Read

Elon Musk dispute with Bill Gates has gone on over Twitter

Elon Musk responded on Twitter to Bill Gates' attempt to short Tesla...