Philanthropy

The Gates Foundation published its yearly Goalkeepers report during the week in New York. It promised $1 billion over two years for uses of artificial intelligence (AI) that serve poorer people fairly. Of this, 40% goes to education, 40% to health, 10% to farming and 10% to data in many languages. The foundation did not say how much will go to Africa. Without that figure, African governments and researchers cannot plan around the money.

The UN Population Fund (UNFPA), which pays for family planning and the health of mothers, gathered pledges of $715 million. More than $292 million of it came from four African governments. That was the strongest sign of the week that African governments will pay for their own health services.

In May 2025 the Gates Foundation said it will spend more than $200 billion over 20 years and then close in 2045. In Addis Ababa in June 2025, Bill Gates said most of it would be spent in Africa. The focus is basic health care, food for mothers and young children, and AI in health. The foundation's 2026 budget is $9 billion. Its running costs are capped at $1.25 billion, and it will cut up to 500 posts by 2030. Even at this pace, it gives less than a fifth of the aid that was lost in 2025.

Other foundations moved less. Giving by US foundations rose 3% after inflation in 2025, and 65% of independent foundations gave out their usual share of assets. Only 8% of foundation heads said the sector had responded very well to aid cuts. From 2016 to 2019, US foundations gave about $6 billion a year for development, a small fraction of US government aid. By mid-2025, trackers had counted $18.4 billion of new commitments, leaving out two very large ones. Sub-Saharan Africa received 13% of the funding opportunities. Philanthropy as a whole is growing far too slowly to cover the gap.

Large gifts to African organisations rose sharply after 2020, but two funders drive the change. The share of the Gates Foundation's large Africa grants going to African organisations rose from 16% to 82% between 2020 and 2023. The Mastercard Foundation's share reached about half. African donors sent only 9% of their large gifts to African organisations between 2010 and 2019, and 41% to governments. If either of the two large funders changes course, African groups lose most of their large gifts.

African donors can still move fast in a crisis. In 2020, Nigeria's CACOVID coalition of companies raised more than $75 million against COVID-19. Private wealth is there to draw on. Africa has 122,500 millionaires and 25 billionaires. South Africa has the most millionaires, with 41,100, while Nigeria has 7,200 and Kenya 6,800. Their number is expected to grow 65% over the next ten years, although Nigeria's fell 47% over the last ten. The money for much more African giving already exists inside Africa.

Savings held by pension funds and insurers are far larger. African pension funds hold about $455 billion and insurers about $320 billion. Yet Africa holds less than 1% of the world's pension assets, while it produced 5.2% of world output in 2023, measured at local prices. At the end of 2023, African pension funds put 44.4% of their investments in government bills and bonds on average. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) finds that most countries' limits on property, private funds and loans are not the problem, because trustees stay well below them. African savings could therefore fund roads and housing at home under the rules that exist today.

Nigeria's pension funds held ₦31.32 trillion, about $22 billion, in May 2026. At the end of 2023, 64.9% of their investments were in government securities. Only ₦318 billion was in infrastructure, so the National Pension Commission (PenCom) is designing a shared fund for it. Pension funds already supplied 56% of the money in bonds backed by InfraCredit, a Nigerian company that guarantees local infrastructure bonds. By the end of 2024 it had backed 24 deals. Companies can deduct gifts up to 10% of profit before tax under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025. Individuals get no tax relief for gifts to non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Nigeria has the tools to move pension money, but its tax law gives wealthy individuals no reason to give.

Kenya's pension funds held Kshs. 2.81 trillion in December 2025. Just over half sat in government securities, and only Kshs. 29.93 billion was in private equity, meaning shares in companies not listed on a stock exchange. Kenya's Public Benefit Organisations Act took effect on 14 May 2024, eleven years late. Existing NGOs have one year to register again, and foreign organisations need at least one-third Kenyan directors. Rules from June 2024 let donors deduct gifts to approved charities, with conditions. Kenya now has both a register of charities and a tax rule, so it can test whether relief draws more local giving.

In South Africa and Namibia, pension savings equal 96% and 104% of the economy. In Nigeria and Ghana they equal 8% and 6%. South Africa lets donors deduct gifts to approved public-benefit organisations up to 10% of taxable income, and carries any excess to later years. Since May 2024, approved organisations must report every tax receipt they issue to the revenue service. South Africa therefore offers the working example for the rest of the continent.

Rules that keep pension money at home differ widely. Botswana sent 62% of its pension assets abroad in 2022, and is raising the share it must invest at home from 38% towards 50% by 2027. Uganda bars pension funds from investing outside East Africa. Ghana generally caps investment abroad at 5%, and 81% of its private pension investments are in government securities. Keeping money at home does not by itself send it to businesses, because much of it is lent to the government.

Several governments are making foreign money for civic groups risky. Uganda's sovereignty law, passed in May 2026, carries prison sentences of up to ten years for promoting foreign interests. Zimbabwe's amended NGO law of April 2025 lets the state strike off groups it sees as political and seize their assets. The European Union suspended its governance funding there in response. Ethiopia closed 1,504 civic organisations in the first half of 2024 and has suspended five major rights groups since December 2024. It also proposes to bar foreign-funded groups from election work. In these countries, a group that takes foreign money for rights work now takes a legal risk.

The OECD expects aid to governments and civil society to fall by 40% between 2024 and 2026. Wealthy Africans mostly give to governments, and foreign money for civic groups is now legally risky in several countries. Independent research, rights work and technology for public use are left without a natural funder.

Africa's own savings are the larger opportunity. Ghana lets pension funds put 25% of their money into private funds, yet they hold 0.58%. A foundation that takes the first losses on a local investment can let pension funds use limits they already have. It can also pay for the checks that trustees need before they invest. That moves far more money than grants alone. In Nigeria, InfraCredit's guarantees brought pension funds into infrastructure bonds that run for 11 years on average.

Tax rules decide whether local giving reaches local organisations. Where the law rewards gifts to audited public-benefit organisations, wealthy Africans have a reason to fund local groups. Reporting every receipt answers a treasury's fear that relief will be misused. Governments would also gain a legal way to fund civic life that does not depend on foreign money.