The donation, combined with longtime Berkshire Hathaway board member Warren Buffett’s $3.1 billion gift last month, brings the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s endowment to about $70 billion, making it one of the largest , if not the largest in the world, depending on the daily stock valuations. In an essay on the foundation’s website, Bill Gates said he hoped “others in positions of great wealth and privilege will step up at this time as well.” The Gates Foundation plans to increase its annual budget by 50% from pre-pandemic levels to about $9 billion by 2026. The foundation hopes the increased spending will improve education, reduce poverty and restore global order. progress towards ending preventable diseases and achieving gender equality. has stopped in recent years. According to the United Nations Development Programme, 71 million people have been pushed into poverty since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, mainly due to increases in food and energy prices. Households in the Balkans, the Caspian Sea region and Sub-Saharan Africa have been particularly affected. The United Nations World Food Program says the number of people who are acutely hungry is now 345 million, up 25 percent since the start of the war in Ukraine. “Despite the enormous global failures of recent years, I see incredible heroism and sacrifice around the world, and I believe that progress is possible,” said Bill Gates, the foundation’s co-chairman. “But the great crises of our time require us all to do more. I hope that by giving more, we can alleviate some of the suffering people are facing right now and help fulfill the foundation’s vision to give every person the opportunity to live healthy. and productive life”. Co-chair Melinda French Gates said the additional spending would help deliver a more “fair and inclusive recovery.” “Philanthropy has a unique role to play in helping people around the world recover from the pandemic and rebuild the underlying systems that left so many so vulnerable in the first place,” French Gates said in a statement. In the “Hunger Pains: The Growing Global Food Crisis” webinar on Monday, Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman said two decades of progress have been halted by the current global crises caused by the Russian invasion. However, agricultural productivity growth around the world remains largely flat. “We have the tools. We have the science. We have the knowledge,” Suzman said. “What we need is the political will and the resources.” These resources include donations from charities. The Gates Foundation is investing heavily in connecting agricultural progress to the right countries, offering drought-resistant corn seeds or flood-resistant rice to the areas that can use them most, Suzman said. However, charity has its limitations, he added. Suzman said the response from the world’s richest countries not only falls short of what is needed now, but even falls short of what the world provided a decade ago during a similar crisis. “This is our most critical area of opportunity for human solidarity,” he said. “This has really negative effects on providing better political stability and broader economic growth, which I think everyone wants to see.” In his essay, Bill Gates wrote that polarization in the United States makes fighting global crises harder. “The political divide limits our political capacity for dialogue, compromise and cooperation and thwarts the bold leadership needed both domestically and internationally to address these threats,” he wrote. “Polarization forces us to look back and fight again for basic human rights, social justice and democratic norms.” While achieving gender equality has long been one of the foundation’s main investment areas, in his essay, Bill Gates singled out the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade as “a huge blow to gender equality, for women’s health and overall human progress. .” “The potential for even further regression is terrifying,” he added. “It will put lives at risk for women, people of color and anyone who lives on the margins.” ——– Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits is supported through AP’s partnership with The Conversation US, funded by the Lilly Endowment Inc. AP is solely responsible for this content.
