Art of giving: Bill Gates has reset billionaire philanthropy standards

The chosen year, 2045, is noteworthy. That is year his foundation plans to end operations. It is also year that Mr Gates will turn 90 and his personal wealth is expected to touch $200 bn

As one of the early generation of “nerd billionaires” who built personal fortunes on their computer skills, Microsoft founder Bill Gates has set standards in corporate philanthropy. Since it was set up in 2000, after Mr Gates stepped down as chief executive of Microsoft, the Gates Foundation has built itself a formidable reputation as a major player in global philanthropy, becoming the world’s third-largest charitable foundation with assets of $77 billion. By announcing in Addis Ababa on Tuesday that he would give away 99 per cent of his vast fortune to Africa by 2045, he has raised the bar even higher. The timing of this announcement is significant: It comes soon after United States (US) President Donald Trump has chosen to drastically cut aid to Africa and end the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the iconic development agency founded by President John F Kennedy in 1961. It could be read as a message to his fellow philanthropists — nine of the world’s top 10 are from the US — to grab the baton of American soft power that the 47th President has chosen to drop.

 

The chosen year, 2045, is noteworthy. That is the year his foundation plans to end operations. It is also the year that Mr Gates will turn 90 and, by his own reckoning, his personal wealth is expected to touch $200 billion. This is a substantial sum. Since its inception, the foundation has spent over $100 billion, much of it on addressing the control of diseases such as malaria, polio, and AIDS, and on sanitation. Mr Gates’ role in the foundation and funding of the global network to make the Covid-19 vaccine accessible to developing nations offers the most recent example of impactful spending. In Africa, where the Gates Foundation has had a long association, the three priorities are to end maternal and infant mortality, ensure that the next generation is free from deadly infectious disease, and lift millions of people out of poverty. In and of themselves, these goals are unexceptionable and like the Buffet and Soros philanthropic ventures, the Gates Foundation has mastered the art of working constructively with local partners to drive his agenda. In India, for example, the foundation has worked closely with the governments of Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh on improving health and education outcomes.

 

All told, the Gates Foundation has been an energetic institution in furthering its developmental agenda with budgets that occasionally outstrip the development spending of small states. This has given rise to concerns about the longer-term consequences of the aid-industry complex as bastions of unaccountable power and influence. To be sure, there is no direct evidence of this yet. More generally, as India is discovering with its mandate on corporate social responsibility spending by corporations of a certain size, ever larger sums of money being expended by corporate philanthropy cannot viably make a dent in the magnitude of global hunger or disease without concomitant sound political governance. Indeed, cynics claim that the expansion of billionaire philanthropy is driven more by the need to shield personal wealth from high federal and state death duties and build reputational capital in an age of rising inequality. Certainly, in giving away most of his future wealth, Mr Gates has achieved both objectives in the most constructive way possible.