(Ecofin Agency) - • Aliko Dangote and three other African philanthropists featured in TIME’s 2025 philanthropy list
• Collectively, their foundations have committed billions to health, education, and poverty alleviation
• TIME highlights their work as global aid budgets shrink and community needs rise

The TIME 100 Philanthropy 2025 edition, published on May 20, honors individuals whose generosity is helping to fill the gap left by reductions in development aid from wealthier nations. Among the 100 most influential philanthropists recognized globally, four Africans are featured for their significant contributions to the continent’s development.

The 2025 list highlights philanthropists from 28 countries who are redirecting substantial private resources to the world’s most vulnerable communities, at a time when foreign aid budgets in high-income countries are experiencing severe cutbacks.

Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote is the only African listed in the “titans” category. The founder and chairman of Dangote Group, whose fortune is estimated at $23.9 billion, endowed the Aliko Dangote Foundation with $1.25 billion in 2014. The foundation allocates an annual $35 million to various development programs across Africa.

One of its flagship initiatives is a multi-year $100 million program to combat severe childhood malnutrition, construct school facilities, and implement vaccination and vocational training schemes. Health, education, economic empowerment, disaster relief, and food are the fundamental elements any African nation needs, Dangote told TIME Magazine.

Three other African philanthropists are listed under the “trailblazers” category: Strive Masiyiwa, his wife Tsitsi Masiyiwa, and Yousriya Loza-Sawiris.

The Masiyiwas, founders of Econet and with a combined net worth of $1.2 billion, are deeply influenced by their Christian faith. In 1996, they launched the HigherLife Foundation to provide educational support to orphaned children in Zimbabwe. Over time, their work expanded to include the Delta Philanthropies charity, founded in 2017, which focuses on education, health, disaster relief, and rural entrepreneurship across Africa.

To date, the HigherLife Foundation has supported over 250,000 individuals through scholarships and leadership programs. Their philanthropic investments include $100 million in job creation and $60 million in healthcare and crisis response. In May 2025, Tsitsi Masiyiwa announced a new contribution from Delta Philanthropies to the Beginnings Fund, a nearly $500 million endowment targeting maternal and neonatal health across the continent.

Yousriya Loza-Sawiris, matriarch of one of Egypt’s wealthiest families, has dedicated more than 40 years to combating poverty. She began her philanthropic work in 1984, and in 2001 she became the founding president of the Sawiris Foundation for Social Development, formalizing the family’s charitable activities.

Her foundation has since invested over $65 million in more than 150 projects, reaching over a million people. Its initiatives span economic empowerment, social inclusion, education, and support for arts and culture. Loza-Sawiris also instilled the value of philanthropy in her children—two of whom are now billionaires, and the third a successful tourism entrepreneur—by taking them as children to donate toys in Egypt’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods.