Gates Foundation approves a budget of $8.6 billion for ‎charitable purposes in 2024‎

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plans to spend a record $8.6 billion this year as health financing falters in lower-income countries after the Covid-19 pandemic.

According to Reuters, the 2024 budget approved by the Foundation’s Board of Directors is 4% higher than last year and $2 billion more than in 2021.

The Foundation said in a statement that global health budgets are declining in general, and contributions to health in low-income countries are at a standstill.

The Gates Foundation is already a major funder in the global health sector and has faced criticism because of its outsized influence, but CEO Mark Suzman said last year that it could not retreat until others emerged, with plans to spend $9 billion annually by 2026.

Bill Gates, the technology billionaire who founded the foundation in 2000 with his wife at the time, Melinda, who still works with him in this foundation, said, “We cannot talk about the future of humanity without talking about the future of health.”

The Gates Foundation has long focused on innovation in health care, and the new funding aims to, among other things, facilitate access to more new technologies for the world’s most vulnerable people.

Gates and other foundation executives plan to carry backpacks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which begins on Monday, to showcase simple health products that could save the lives of millions, from vaccine patches to an ultrasound tool powered by artificial intelligence. Gates will also talk about the potential of artificial intelligence in health more broadly at this event.