LONDON: A group of philanthropies including the Gates Foundation has set up a fund backed with nearly $500 million to help save the lives of newborn babies and mothers in sub-Saharan Africa, standing out against a bleak global health funding landscape.
The Beginnings Fund was launched on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, the home of another key backer — the United Arab Emirates’ recently established Mohamed Bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity. The project has been in the works for at least a year. But its role has become more important as governments worldwide follow the US in pulling back from international aid, its chief executive Alice Kang’ethe told Reuters in an interview.
“It is an opportune moment,” she said earlier this month, stressing that the fund aimed to work alongside African governments, experts and organizations rather than parachuting in experts or technologies, an approach she said differed from many traditional donor programs.
“Two generations ago... women in the UAE used to die during childbirth. More than half of children did not survive past childhood,” said Tala Al Ramahi at the Mohamed Bin Zayed Foundation, saying the lessons learned in what worked to change those outcomes would help inform the effort.
The Beginnings Fund aims to save the lives of 300,000 mothers and newborn babies by 2030, and expand quality care for 34 million mothers and babies.
The partners also pledged $100 million in direct investments in maternal and child health, separate to the fund.
It plans to operate in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Lesotho, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, focusing on low-cost interventions and personnel in high-burden hospitals. The work will track and target the key reasons babies and mothers die, including infection, severe bleeding for mothers, and respiratory distress for infants. The world has made major progress in reducing newborn and maternal deaths, halving the neonatal mortality rate between 1990 and 2022. But that progress has stagnated or even reversed in nearly all regions in the last few years, according to the World Health Organization, which has warned that aid cuts could make this worse.
“Mothers and newborns should not be dying from causes we know how to prevent,” said Dr. Mekdes Daba, minister of health for Ethiopia, stressing that the majority of deaths are avoidable.
Kang’ethe said the Beginnings Fund, like other philanthropies, was getting calls to fill gaps in global aid funding, but remained focused on its long-term aim of changing the trajectory of mother and newborn survival.
The fund is also backed by the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, Delta Philanthropies and the ELMA Foundation, among others. It will be led from Nairobi, Kenya.
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UAE and Gates Foundation launch $500m maternal health fund for Africa
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UAE and Gates Foundation launch $500m maternal health fund for Africa
- Beginnings Fund will help save lives of newborn babies and mothers in sub-Saharan Africa
- Mohamed Bin Zayed Foundation for Humanity launches the fund in Abu Dhabi
The West Bank soccer field slated for demolition by Israel
- The move is likely to eliminate one of the few spaces where Palestinian children are able to run and play
BETHLEHEM: Israeli authorities have ordered the demolition of a soccer field in a crowded refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, eliminating one of the few spaces where Palestinian children are able to run and play.
“If the field gets demolished, this will destroy our dreams and our future. We cannot play any other place but this field, the camp does not have spaces,” said Rital Sarhan, 13, who plays on a girls’ soccer team in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem.
The Israeli military issued a demolition order for the soccer field on December 31, saying it was built illegally in an area that abuts the concrete barrier wall that Israel built in the West Bank.
“Along the security fence, a seizure order and a construction prohibition order are in effect; therefore, the construction in the area was carried out unlawfully,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Mohammad Abu Srour, an administrator at Aida Youth Center, which manages the field, said the military gave them seven days to demolish the field.
The Israeli military often orders Palestinians to carry out demolitions themselves. If they do not act, the military steps in to destroy the structure in question and then sends the Palestinians a bill for the costs.
According to Abu Srour, Israel’s military told residents when delivering the demolition order that the soccer field represented a threat to the separation wall and to Israelis.
“I do not know how this is possible,” he said.
Israeli demolitions have drawn widespread international criticism and coincide with heightened fears among Palestinians of an organized effort by Israel to formally annex the West Bank, the area seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel accelerated demolitions in Palestinian refugee camps in early 2025, leading to the displacement of 32,000 residents of camps in the central and northern West Bank. Human Rights Watch has called the demolitions a war crime. Israel has said they are intended to disrupt militant activity.
“If the field gets demolished, this will destroy our dreams and our future. We cannot play any other place but this field, the camp does not have spaces,” said Rital Sarhan, 13, who plays on a girls’ soccer team in the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem.
The Israeli military issued a demolition order for the soccer field on December 31, saying it was built illegally in an area that abuts the concrete barrier wall that Israel built in the West Bank.
“Along the security fence, a seizure order and a construction prohibition order are in effect; therefore, the construction in the area was carried out unlawfully,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Mohammad Abu Srour, an administrator at Aida Youth Center, which manages the field, said the military gave them seven days to demolish the field.
The Israeli military often orders Palestinians to carry out demolitions themselves. If they do not act, the military steps in to destroy the structure in question and then sends the Palestinians a bill for the costs.
According to Abu Srour, Israel’s military told residents when delivering the demolition order that the soccer field represented a threat to the separation wall and to Israelis.
“I do not know how this is possible,” he said.
Israeli demolitions have drawn widespread international criticism and coincide with heightened fears among Palestinians of an organized effort by Israel to formally annex the West Bank, the area seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war. Israel accelerated demolitions in Palestinian refugee camps in early 2025, leading to the displacement of 32,000 residents of camps in the central and northern West Bank. Human Rights Watch has called the demolitions a war crime. Israel has said they are intended to disrupt militant activity.
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