"Last year didn't go the way Bill Gates hoped. As a philanthropist who has dedicated billions to improving everything from healthcare and education in poor countries to climate change action, Gates could only watch as the Trump administration slashed swathes of foreign aid contracts. The Microsoft co-founder has criticised the cost-cutting regime, much of which was enacted under Elon Musk's Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE)."
"The thing I am most upset about is the fact that the world went backwards last year on a key metric of progress: the number of deaths of children under five years old. Over the last 25 years, those deaths went down faster than at any other point in history. But in 2025, they went up for the first time this century, from 4.6 million in 2024 to 4.8 million in 2025-an increase driven by less support from rich countries to poor countries."
Bill Gates has invested billions in global health, education, and climate initiatives and observed major foreign aid reductions under the Trump administration and DOGE. The aid cuts have been criticised as directly contributing to a reversal in progress on child mortality, with under-five deaths rising from 4.6 million in 2024 to 4.8 million in 2025. Bespoke modelling in the Gates Foundation's Goalkeepers Report projects up to 12.5 million additional child deaths by 2045 if development assistance for health falls 20% from 2024 levels. Gates remains optimistic about AI-driven innovation but warns of difficult near-term years and caveats to that optimism.
Read at Fortune
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