Bill Gates warns on aid cuts after £1 billion UK spend

Philanthropist Bill Gates says his foundation has invested more than £1 billion in UK university research over the past five years, but has warned that cuts to the country’s foreign aid budget will force “ruthless” choices on policymakers.

Mr Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, said the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had given the funds to institutions including the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh and Oxford, plus Imperial College London, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

In an interview with Jeremy Hunt, chair of the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee, conducted for the Policy Exchange thinktank, Mr Gates described the Gates Foundation’s UK partnerships as “amazing” and argued that they had made a “huge difference”.

“We’ve spent over the last five years over £1 billion on UK academic centres because they have incredible expertise, and that’s true all over the country,” Mr Gates said.

Mr Gates spoke positively about the UK’s contribution to overseas aid, noting that the UK and his foundation had both been major donors to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and to the Global Fund, which is funding efforts to combat HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.

The UK recently cut its contribution to overseas aid to 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product, down from 0.7 per cent, citing the financial pressures of the coronavirus pandemic, a move that led to research funding cuts for UK universities.

Mr Gates described the cut as “unfortunate” but said the UK could be proud of its impact to date.

“As a percentage of tax payments, it’s not a huge percentage, but particularly in health, I wish everybody could go and see the impact of half as many kids dying before the age of five since the year 2000, when that all got started,” he told Mr Hunt.

Mr Gates said the consensus was that the UK “shows up” on international aid and was “thought [highly] of in terms of the quality of its aid [and] the impact of its aid”.

“I hope that remains. The fact that we’re going to be down at 0.5 per cent [of GDP] for a while means prioritising and being even more ruthless about which ones are high impact,” Mr Gates said.

Last year, the Gates Foundation distributed $5.8 billion (£4.3 billion) in grant support, with more than 1,300 grantees benefiting.

chris.havergal@timeshighereducation.com