Women’s health is being neglected worldwide with “maternity care deserts” more common, millions denied abortions and maternal death rates surging, Melinda French Gates has warned as she launches a $250m (£190m) fund to improve women’s physical and mental health globally.
Despite advances in medicine, women experience “unacceptable” inequities across all aspects of their health, spend more years living with ill health and still face barriers to accessing basic care. Women in rich and poor nations are affected and more than 700 are dying in childbirth each day, French Gates said.
Women have also been suffering with the global consequences of the abortion bans enacted in the US after the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022. French Gates told the Guardian the US election next month would be critical. “There is so much at stake for women and families,” she added.
Today she will launch Action for Women’s Health through her organisation, Pivotal, and direct what will total $250m in new grants to groups around the world working on improving women’s health.
“To fully exercise power over their lives, women need to be mentally and physically healthy. And yet, women’s health is being neglected everywhere,” French Gates said. “More than 1 billion women and girls suffer from malnutrition. Reproductive healthcare is being denied in the US and other countries. And globally, a woman dies in childbirth every two minutes.”
She added: “This is unacceptable, but there is reason for hope. Organisations around the world are taking innovative approaches to addressing these challenges, and this open call is about getting them the resources they need to scale up and reach as many people as possible.”
French Gates is inviting groups focused on women’s health – regardless of geography, perspective or size – to apply for up to $5m each. The initiative comes less than five months after she left the foundation she and her former husband, Bill Gates, founded more than two decades ago.
French Gates said the $250m she was pledging to advance women’s health formed a quarter of a $1bn donation commitment over the next two years to individuals and organisations working on behalf of women and families globally.
It is the second billion-dollar commitment French Gates has personally made in the past five years. In 2019, she vowed to expand women’s power and influence over the next decade.
Although the degradation of women’s health and reproductive rights was a global concern, the US election next month was likely to be particularly consequential, French Gates said.
“There is so much at stake for women and families in this election, and we need a leader who will fight for women’s rights, especially their access to reproductive care,” she added. She has endorsed the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, pointing to the need to protect reproductive rights.
“With Roe overturned, women have been denied emergency care, maternal mortality rates have continued to rise, and maternity care deserts are becoming more common,” she said. “Of course, these challenges aren’t limited to the US – women in low- and middle-income countries have long struggled to access quality care.”
She added: “No matter where you are in the world, women’s health is foundational to the health of a broader society. There are so many amazing organisations working to improve women’s health, and this call is about getting them the funding they need and making sure women everywhere can access the care they deserve.”
The $250m initiative seeks to open access to funding streams to organisations that historically have been shut out, French Gates said. Eligible projects must have a track record of improving women’s mental or physical health and be poised to scale their work to strengthen the health of more women.
Action for Women’s Health will be managed by Lever for Change, a nonprofit affiliate of the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation.
“With this new open call, we hope to reach even more outstanding organisations in communities that have not had access to this kind of funding,” said Cecilia Conrad, the chief executive officer of Lever for Change. “Action for Women’s Health will lift up community-informed groups around the world with deep lived experience of the issues they work on.”
