Warned that European generosity toward African migrants creates 'perverse incentives' and called for foreign aid investment instead

In a widely-reported interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, Bill Gates said that Europe faced enormous migratory pressure from Africa — pressure that would only intensify as African populations grew — and warned that generous refugee policies created problematic incentives: 'On the one hand you want to demonstrate generosity and take in refugees, but the more generous you are, the more word gets around about this, which in turn motivates more people to leave Africa.' Rather than open borders, Gates argued that the EU should increase foreign development aid, fix the push factors at source, and — alongside Germany, whose 0.7% GDP aid commitment he praised as 'phenomenal' — make migration harder to attempt while investing more in conditions that would make it unnecessary.