A new $70 million global fund was launched to focus on women’s health.
The Women’s Health Co-Lab, backed by philanthropists including Melinda French Gates, aims to mobilize a further $30 million to put toward three key areas that have been among the hardest hit by the Trump administration’s cuts to USAID — maternal health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and gender-based violence.
The fund, managed by the philanthropy arm of global investment firm ICONIQ and philanthropic organization Co-Impact, will support 22 organizations over the next three years including five in Africa.
“Global aid is shrinking and it’s women and girls — especially in Africa — that are being disproportionately impacted as health inequalities grow,” Co-Impact CEO Olivia Leland told Semafor. By “pooling philanthropic capital to back local leaders” the fund hopes to deliver “impact that no funder could achieve alone,” she added.
