Gates Foundation Announces Massive Gender Equality Initiative Weeks After Bill And Melinda Split

The Gates Foundation announced in a press release Monday that it would invest $2.1 billion to advance gender equality.

The five-year commitment will help advance women’s health, economic and leadership programs, according to the press release.

“The world has been fighting for gender equality for decades, but progress has been slow. Now is the chance to reignite a movement and deliver real change,” Gates Foundation co-chair Melinda French Gates said in the press release.

“The beauty of our fight for gender equality is that every human being will gain from it. We must seize this moment to build a better, more equal future,” French Gates said.

French Gates serves as the “primary face and voice” of the foundation’s gender equality work, Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman told The Wall Street Journal.

The foundation did not return the Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.

Microsoft Corp. co-founder and Gates Foundation co-chair Bill Gates saw advancing gender equality as a priority as “it is essential to fighting poverty and preventable disease,” he said in the press release.

The $2.1 billion investment is the largest commitment the foundation has made to a specific issue, the WSJ reported.  Previous single commitments focused on polio eradication and vaccine development.

Bill and Melinda Gates filed for divorce in May 2021 but will continue their work together at the foundation, Bill Gates said in a tweet.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett resigned as a trustee of the Gates Foundation last week, according to Berkshire Hathaway’s shareholder letter.

Buffett announced that he would donate the $ 4.1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway shares to the foundation, which marked the halfway point in his pledge to donate all personal Berkshire Hathaway shares to charity.

Melinda French Gates is scheduled to speak at the Gender Equality Forum in Paris on Friday.