Billionaire philanthropist and chairman of the Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, has described Nigeria’s spending on healthcare as “very, very small” and inadequate to address the country’s persistent health challenges, particularly high maternal and child mortality rates.
Speaking during a media roundtable on Wednesday, Gates warned that without significantly increased investment, the country would continue to see little improvement in health outcomes. He said he had raised the issue directly with President Bola Tinubu, stressing the urgent need to scale up the national health budget.
“Well, the amount of money Nigeria spends on healthcare is very, very small,” Gates said. “I don’t know why you would have expected that number [referring to maternal mortality] to go down.”
He noted that safe childbirth and other critical health services require adequate infrastructure and funding. “If a mother delivers at home, there are certain complications that you can’t solve. Countries like India drive delivery into centres where they can provide C-sections. But that takes money,” he explained.
In February, the National Assembly raised the health sector allocation for 2025 by ₦300 billion, bringing the total to ₦2.48 trillion—representing just 5.18% of the national budget.
Responding to a question on whether the Gates Foundation could fill the financial void left by declining U.S. government support, Gates clarified that the foundation has limited resources and cannot replace international donor funding.
“The problem with the Gates Foundation is we don’t have some special bucket of money,” he said. “All my money will be spent. Whether other donors give more or less, the amount we spend doesn’t change. So my money is not extra money.”
Gates emphasized that while the foundation steps in during emergencies—such as stalled clinical trials or unused medical supplies—it cannot match the scale of funding that used to come from governments like the United States.
“There’s nobody who can match that U.S. government money,” he said. “European funding is also declining. We’ve seen a 40% decrease from Germany and the UK. In their case, it’s more about competing financial pressures—like supporting Ukraine and aging populations—than ideology.”
He warned that the cuts would have real consequences: “We’ll have more HIV deaths, malaria deaths, and maternal deaths. There’s just no denying that the money was being well spent. And there’s no alternate source that can match it.”
In May, Gates announced plans to donate nearly all his wealth over the next two decades, with a major portion—estimated at $200 billion—expected to be directed toward Africa.
Nzubechukwu Eze
