06/October/21

 

The Gates Foundation promotes itself as “fighting poverty, disease, and inequity,” but it does so from an extremely narrow point of view. It’s governed by two people, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates. Until recently, there was a third member of the board of trustees — another white multibillionaire, Warren Buffett. The charity has long depended on the rich and the powerful. Though its website is adorned with pictures of poor Black and brown people from the Global South, the foundation overwhelmingly directs its dollars to institutions based in the Global North. The Nation examined 30,000 charitable grants the foundation has awarded over the past two decades and found that more than 88 percent of the donations — $63 billion — have gone to recipients in the wealthiest, whitest nations, including the United States, Canada, Australia, and European countries. The Nation

 

 

The Gates Foundation has committed $922 million "to advance global nutrition to help women and children". But Gates's idea of funding nutrition is selling fortified food to deal with malnutrition caused partly by AGRA ("Growing Africa's Agriculture"), which is also funded by Gates, said researcher and author Timothy A. Wise on Twitter. AGRA stands accused of reducing crop and diet diversity as hunger increased 30%. Timothy A. Wise on Twitter @TimothyAWise