Former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates is pledging more than $7 billion (about R120 billion) to improve health, gender equality and boost farming productivity in Africa. The tech billionaire will move this money through his and his ex-wife’s philanthropic endeavor, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The foundation will spend this amount over the next four years, with grants that are in addition to the financing the foundation has made to organisations fighting Aids, tuberculosis and malaria, it said.
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The foundation has said that Africa has been disproportionately hit by everything from conflicts to climate change-induced famines and floods, which has left 278 million across the continent suffering from chronic hunger. These adverse effects has also stymied sub-Saharan Africa’s progress at meeting its sustainable development goals (SGDs) including ending food scarcity and creating jobs, according to the United Nations.
“Our ambition is that by 2030, all sub-Saharan African countries have improved trajectories towards achieving SDGs,” the foundation said in a statement.
There are five main countries that the foundation will focus on with these efforts, namely Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. It believes these are the places it can make the biggest impact with the resources it has available.
Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, has a fortune of $112.8-billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while Melinda French Gates is worth $11-billion. The Gates Foundation has long been a powerhouse in the nonprofit world, employing almost 1 800 people and spending nearly $80-billion since 2000.
