Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote, has obtained written consent from his three daughters, their mother, and his own mother to allocate 33 per cent of his fortune to charitable causes, his daughter and foundation trustee Halima Dangote disclosed in an interview with Bloomberg.
Based on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Dangote's wealth currently stands at an estimated $35.1 billion. The planned charitable portion would therefore amount to approximately $11.6 billion, positioning it among the largest philanthropic commitments ever made by an African billionaire.
Halima explained that the family considers philanthropy inseparable from business success. "Giving back is part and parcel of what we do," she said, noting that the arrangement is consistent with Islamic inheritance principles and reflects the family's long-standing approach to structured giving.
The commitment extends the work of the Aliko Dangote Foundation, established in 1994. Halima revealed that the foundation received an endowment of $1.25 billion roughly a decade ago, with an additional $700 million injected more recently. Roughly 70 per cent of the foundation's spending is directed to Nigeria, another 20 per cent is distributed across Africa, and the remainder supports initiatives elsewhere globally.
The foundation has funded interventions in health, nutrition and humanitarian relief, including partnerships with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and several northern Nigerian state governments to eradicate wild polio. Africa was declared free of wild poliovirus transmission in 2020.
Dangote's philanthropy has drawn international recognition. In March 2025, he was named to TIME Magazine's inaugural TIME100 Philanthropy list in the "Titans" category, the only Nigerian so honoured alongside figures such as Michael Bloomberg, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett and Melinda French Gates. TIME reported that the foundation spends more than N50 billion — about $35 million — annually on charitable programmes across Africa.
The planned 33 per cent allocation falls short of the 50 per cent minimum typically associated with the Giving Pledge, the global initiative through which wealthy individuals commit the majority of their fortunes to philanthropy. Only a handful of African billionaires have joined that pledge, among them South Africa's Patrice Motsepe and his wife Precious, Zimbabwe's Strive and Tsitsi Masiyiwa, and Tanzania's Mohammed Dewji.
The announcement comes against a backdrop of persistent wealth inequality across Africa. Oxfam reported in 2025 that the average income of the continent's richest one per cent had grown five times faster than that of the bottom 50 per cent since 2020.
