In the first billion dollar-plus commitment since Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates announced their plans to divorce, their foundation said Wednesday that it would devote $2.1 billion over five years to promote women‘s and girls’ health, economic opportunity, and access to power.
The approach buttresses much of the work Melinda French Gates has pursued both at the foundation and through Pivotal Ventures, her investing organization.
In 2019, French Gates committed $1 billion in Pivotal Ventures investments and grants to promote gender equality. The strategy aims to help women get elected to public office, steer investment capital to women entrepreneurs, end a culture of sexual harassment, and bring women’s pay on par with that of their male counterparts.
The worldwide spread of the Covid-19 pandemic over the past 15 months and its economic fallout have made the foundation’s commitments in these areas far more urgent.
“The recession and the early trends of the recovery make the case for action perfectly clear: Women face structural barriers that have made them more vulnerable to the pandemic’s impacts — and eliminating these barriers will jump-start the recovery,” said French Gates in written remarks about the foundation’s latest commitment.
Access to Leadership
This latest commitment pours more money into three areas: women’s economic empowerment, family planning and health, and expanding women’s access to leadership positions.
Of the total, the foundation is directing $1.4 billion toward increasing options and access to contraceptives and will provide backing to a network of family-planning groups including United Nations Population Fund Supplies Partnership; Family Planning 2030, a United Nations program; the Global Financing Facility, the World Bank’s program to ensure health and well-being of women, children, and adolescents in Africa, Asia, and Latin America; and a new program called Shaping Equitable Market Access for Reproductive Heath.
The foundation is putting $650 million toward expanding its existing economic empowerment efforts by backing women’s collectives and groups that work to improve women’s access to employment and entrepreneurship opportunities as well as child and family care.
The remaining $100 million of the total $2.1 billion pledge will go toward efforts aimed at speeding up women’s inclusion in leadership roles especially in economics, law, and health care globally.
Grassroots Focus
The Gates Foundation began a larger body of work to helip women in 2016 when it committed $80 million to collecting data on issues women face globally and supporting grassroots groups led by women.
It followed up two years later when it announced a $170 million strategy to improve women’s financial standing globally. That effort started by supporting research, community organizing, and policy development in India, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Grants went to create self-help groups to help women find support and amplify their collective voice, connect with market opportunities for their products and services, study land ownership and inheritance patterns in the developing world, and push for greater access to digital financial services for women.
French Gates wrote in the couple’s annual letter in 2018 that in the foundation’s early days, she held back from speaking in meetings, and people often directed their questions and responses to Bill Gates, not her.
French Gates said in the letter that she became more comfortable in a public role at the foundation because of the importance to women of access to contraception, educational opportunities, and career advancement.
“Gradually, I’ve focused more and more on gender issues, because I’ve seen repeatedly that the more empowered women and girls are, the stronger their communities are,” she wrote. “As I’ve thought more deeply about equality for women around the world, I’ve been proud that Bill and I have achieved it in our life together.”
