Name: Bill Gates to give most of his $200bn fortune to Africa | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-06-05T21:01:20.000Z
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Now, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates says he plans to lobby the U.S. government to reconsider terminating its financial support to the vaccine alliance Gavi.

In an exclusive interview with Focus on Africa's Waihega Mwaura,

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Mr. Gates said he will be making a case to U.S. President Donald Trump to restore funding to Gavi, which he says will prevent children from dying from vaccine-preventable diseases.

Already, the Africa CDC has said it has seen an increase in measles, meningitis and yellow fever in African countries.

Speaking to us at the African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Mr. Gates said aid still plays a crucial or critical role as the region pivots towards self-reliance.

Within the next 20 years, most African countries will graduate to self-sufficiency for these very basic things.

And so what we should care about is how does aid fit in to accelerate that?

When you stop that baby from getting HIV, when you buy that bed net, when you figure out what is malnutrition.

And so the baby's brain fully develops, achieves its full potential.

You're accelerating that path for Africa to be largely middle-income countries.

To quote the outgoing Africa Development Bank president, he said, and I paraphrase that, Africa's development will not come from aid.

Well, aid as a percentage of the economy won't be gigantic, but if you believe that babies shouldn't be infected with HIV, and aid is helping you with that.

If you want all the world's science to help cure sickle cell disease, and that's not going to get organized except by aid that brings those scientific resources.

Aid plays a unique role, and anybody who says aid versus something else, that's a silly discussion.

There have been global aid cuts, but more specifically from the United States by the Trump administration.

Do you think philanthropists like yourself can fill that gap?

Well, the numbers are way too large for philanthropy to fill that gap.

We're going to see a dramatic increase in children's deaths because we're not going to have those capacities.

Are you willing to use your considerable influence to possibly seek audience with President Trump again?

Maybe ask him to consider a more gradual pullout from some of these programs, Gavi with vaccinations, for example?

No, I'll make a strong case that the U.S. should stay involved in Gavi, that it should be a leader on helping with polio eradication, that these HIV programs, some efficiencies can be gained.

I want us to pivot for a little bit and talk about, and ask you about a company that you have interest in, Cobol Metals.

It's an investment company that's got backing from you and Jeff Bezos, and there have been some announcements recently about their work in the DRC, specifically to do with lithium mining.

Are you able to tell us a little bit about your interests in this company?

Yeah, so Cobol was created to use artificial intelligence to take all the data about what's buried underground and to find valuable mining deposits.

It's very good news for Africa that they found many major deposits, and that'll generate a lot of jobs, a lot of royalties.

I don't know the specifics of the DRC lithium mine.

I'm glad to hear they're doing work there.

I know about some of the work in other countries they're doing with copper.

The DRC, this I'm sure you're aware of, has been in the midst of a conflict in the eastern DRC, and its effects are being felt across the country and across the region as well.

There are those who would be unhappy with a philanthropist like yourself having investments in a company that, to some extent, is part of the mining sector, and human rights groups have raised challenges about the mining sector.

Would you see why some would be concerned about what they describe as profiting from others' pain?

Well, I don't think telling all investors to stay away from Africa is necessarily the best thing.

I bet there's a way to have mines that create jobs and royalties for the government, allows them to buy vaccines, save lives, but I'm not an expert on the particulars there.

The Gates Foundation does a lot of work in the DRC.

There's diseases like sleeping sickness, where we've created new drugs, new diagnostics, and the suffering for something like sleeping sickness is terrible.

Just clarify, for those who may not understand, the differences between, obviously, the work that you do and your investment in the Gates Foundation, and of course, some of the interests you would have in other companies, including Cobalt Ventures.

I created a thing called Breakthrough Energy, which is to back companies that can help with climate change, and of course, that's a huge challenge for Africa, and using innovation to reduce climate change is why that was created.

Cobalt is one of the investments coming out of that activity.

The Gates Foundation, of course, is completely non-profit.

We buy vaccines, and so it's purely on the donation side, partnering with the health system.