Microsoft co-founder and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has issued a sobering assessment of global development, stating that the world 'went backwards' in 2025. In his annual 2026 letter and a series of interviews at the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, Gates highlighted a historic and 'upsetting' reversal: the first year-on-year increase in global child mortality recorded in the 21st century.
According to data cited in his 'Optimism with Footnotes' letter, the number of deaths of children under the age of five rose from 4.6 million in 2024 to 4.8 million in 2025. Gates attributed this shift primarily to significant reductions in foreign aid from wealthy nations and the scaling back of international health programmes, as reported by Gates Notes.
