As women in developing countries become more vulnerable than ever after the Trump administration gutted funding for global health initiatives, private donors are stepping in to fill the gaps.
The Gates Foundation announced a $2.5 billion commitment over five years to expand research and access for women’s health, its largest investment yet in this area, according to Inside Philanthropy. The funds will be allocated for research around low-cost solutions in obstetric care and maternal immunization, contraception, sexually transmitted infections, and maternal and reproductive health for women in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
That means money will continue to flow into the development of a portable diagnostic tool that informs women within minutes whether they have STIs, rather than having to wait for lab results. This kind of technology “could be a game-changer in low-resource settings, where access to STI testing is often limited or nonexistent,” said Ru-fong Joanne Cheng, director of Women’s Health Innovations at the Gates Foundation.
Funding will also be expanded to develop an affordable, handheld, AI-powered ultrasound machine in communities where many pregnant women don’t have access to ultrasounds.
“Many women in these communities want to have control over their reproductive health but do not use existing contraceptive methods because of male interference, concerns about side effects, or lack of access to options that meet their specific needs,” Cheng wrote in a blog post.
The U.S. provided roughly 32% of total global health funding, according to an analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Up to $10 billion has been wiped out for the upcoming fiscal year alone, according to Science, and upwards of $40 billion will disappear over the next 3 to 5 years.
Health organizations across the globe are scrambling to find alternative funding streams for the billions of dollars in grants and other monies that have been canceled. The Trump administration’s 2026 fiscal year budget request also did not include any funding for bilateral maternal and child efforts, according to a report by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Aside from Bill Gates’ promise to donate the majority of his fortune to global health causes in Africa, Melinda French Gates along with her daughters recently helped launch the $100 million Women’s Health Co-Lab, a collaborative fund focused on global health inequity for women and girls.