Gates Foundation seeks better funding for global health

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has warned that additional 40 million children will suffer from hunger’s worst effects by 2050 due to climate change, therefore, calling on world leaders to increase global health spending to boost children’s health and nutrition.

In its eighth yearly Goalkeepers report titled, “A Race to Nourish a Warming World,” the foundation projected that without immediate global action, climate change would condemn an additional 40 million children to stunting and 28 million more to wasting between 2024 and 2050.

The report noted that scaling up solutions could prevent the feared outcomes, while also building resilience to climate change and spurring much-needed economic growth.

It stated that in 2023, the World Health Organisation estimated that 148 million children experienced stunting, a condition where children would not grow to their full potential mentally or physically, while 45 million children experienced wasting, a condition where children become weak and emaciated, leaving them at much greater risk of developmental delays and death.

The report reads: “These are the most severe and irreversible forms of chronic and acute malnutrition. At the same time, as global challenges intensify, the total share of foreign aid going to Africa has decreased. In 2010, 40 per cent of foreign aid went to African countries; but that number is now down to just 25 per cent, the lowest percentage in 20 years.”

The author of the report and the Co-chair of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, said the world was contending with more challenges than at any point, particularly inflation, debt and new wars.