Gates Foundation pledges $7 billion for Africa as Ukraine war diverts donor cash

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said on Thursday it was committing $7 billion to Africa over the next four years, as Bill Gates warned that the Ukraine crisis was reducing the amount of aid flowing to the continent.

The Foundation’s pledge, which is up 40% on the amount spent during the previous four years, will target projects tackling hunger, disease, poverty and gender inequality. Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, will take the biggest share.

Humanitarian groups in Africa are grappling with the diversion of funding away towards Ukraine, and as Russia’s invasion increases goods prices globally, impacting aid operations.

“The European budgets are deeply affected by the Ukraine war and so right now the trend for aid is not to go up,” the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) told journalists at the University of Nairobi during a visit to Kenya.

“If you take all aid (into Africa) including all climate aid – we’ll have a few years where it’ll probably go down.”

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