After Rolling Out New Programs, Gates Foundation Plans Year of Status Quo

After the debut of several new grant-making programs in education, poverty reduction, and international development this year, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will spend 2019 refining its strategies rather than rolling out new areas of support, said Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the foundation’s chief executive officer.

“I do not expect a new strategy in 2019,” she told the Chronicle in an interview. “We’re fully booked.”

Gates listed $52 billion in assets and paid out $4.4 billion in grants in 2017. The grant maker has not announced projected grant totals for the current year. Desmond-Hellman indicated that grant making in 2019 would likely be consistent with this year’s levels.

Desmond-Hellmann provided next year’s forecast in conjunction with a year-end video produced by the foundation to showcase several of its accomplishments in 2018.

This year, the foundation announced its first foray into domestic-poverty work, with a $158 million commitment. It has begun supporting students and teachers internationally, with $68 million dedicated to the work. And it opened the doors and fully staffed the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute in Boston, to help researchers move drugs and vaccines through clinical trials and to market.

The foundation also made the first $90 million commitment in a previously announced overhaul of its U.S. education programs. The new grants, the beginning of a $1 billion effort, will support networks of schools seeking to increase high-school graduation rates among black, Latino, and low-income students. A gender-equity strategy spearheaded by Melinda Gates saw its budget increase by $170 million.

Progress Indicators

In addition to spotlighting its new programs, Gates released a series of indicators showing that its public-health investments are yielding results. In June, Paraguay eliminated malaria, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved tafenoquine, the first new anti-malarial drug in more than 60 years. At the London Malaria Summit this year, 53 Commonwealth countries committed $4 billion to ending the disease.

Also this year, 700 million children were given vaccines for various diseases in countries served by GAVI, the Gates-funded global vaccine alliance. As a result, 10 million lives will be saved, according to the foundation. Two HIV vaccine trials are under way in India, and the foundation noted early progress in making vaccines available for typhoid and diarrheal disease.

Desmond-Hellmann said that people are often flooded with negative news, yet there are many reasons to be optimistic. The year-end video, she said, is a chance to celebrate progress.

“More people than ever before are leading healthy, productive lives,” she said. “It’s a crazy world … it’s easy for people to miss that.”

Stubborn Problems

Still, Desmond-Hellmann said the foundation couldn’t “take its eye off the ball,” and needed to continue to press for results. In 2019, Gates will work to integrate some of its anti-poverty and education support, with a focus on ensuring students are well prepared for the job market. And malaria remains a stubborn foe. Despite new funding and pockets of success, global progress in fighting the disease has stalled over the past two years, she said.

Even with concerted effort and millions of dollars in grants, some problems won’t be easy to address. When Desmond-Hellmann took the top job at the foundation in 2014, one of her first tasks was to lead its response to the Ebola crisis in West Africa. The foundation quickly sent $50 million in assistance out the door, and it’s credited with playing a major part in ensuring that the epidemic did not spread.

Now, as the disease has resurfaced in a war zone, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gates is having difficulty tracking its spread and sending help. The foundation responded by providing the World Health Organization with $2 million in August, but containing the disease will be difficult given a high level of violence in parts of the country.

“The current epidemic is extremely challenging,” she said. “We remain concerned because it’s in such a tough area.”