Bill Gates, chairman of the Gates Foundation, says the amount spent by the Nigerian government on its healthcare sector is “too small” to address endemic challenges.
Speaking at a media roundtable on Wednesday, Gates said high maternal and child mortality rates will not reduce if healthcare investments are not ramped up.
The billionaire philanthropist said he had spoken to President Bola Tinubu about the need to increase the country’s health budget.
According to him, while he understands that the government faces many tradeoffs in public expenditure, boosting investments in healthcare are crucial.
“Well, the amount of money Nigeria spends on health care is very, very small,” he said.
“I don’t know why you would have expected that number (referring to maternal mortality) to go down.
“If a mother delivers at home, there are certain complications that you can’t solve. So what countries like India do is they drive delivery into centres where they can give C-sections. But that takes money.”
In February, the national assembly increased allocation to the country’s health sector by N300 billion in the 2025 budget.
The federal government allocated N2.48 trillion to the health sector, representing 5.18 percent of the total appropriation.
US FUNDING CUTS
Asked whether his foundation will plug the health funding gap left by the United States, Gates said no organisation can match the financial contribution of the US government to global health.
The philanthropist said he is “upset” by the withdrawal of the US government from global health funding.
“The problem with the Gates Foundation is we don’t have some special bucket of money,” he said.
“We spend more every year, and all my money will be spent. And so no matter what the other people do, it’s the same amount of money.
“If they increase, I’ll still spend my money. If they disappear, I’ll still spend my money. So my money is not extra money.
“There’s a few things where they left medicines in the warehouse or they cut off a medical trial in the middle where we take our money and we shift it to help out.
“There’s nobody who can match that US government money. And the European money is all coming down. We have like a 40% decrease from Germany and the UK.
“In their case, it’s less ideological and more to do with just getting money for Ukraine or an aging society.
“I’m very upset about it. We’ll have more HIV deaths, malaria deaths, and maternal deaths. There’s just no denying that that money was being well spent. And there’s no alternate source that matches up to what was available.”
In May, the Microsoft co-founder said he is giving away virtually all his wealth over the next two decades.
Recently, he declared that most of his $200 billion donation over the next 20 years will go to Africa.
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