On day two of the International AIDS Conference, both Bill Clinton and Bill Gates gave speeches on being more effective with available money to fight the disease. There are no planned budget increases from the major governments and donors of the world, so instead the AIDS fighters will need to be less wasteful.From the Guardian, Sarah Boseley jotted down the following notes from the speeches. "This is a tough economic environment. Right now there isn't enough money to simply treat our way out of this epidemic," he said."If we keep spending our resources in exactly the same way we do today, we will fall further behind in our ability to treat everyone."Gates cited male circumcision, which a major trial four years ago showed could reduce the chances of a man contracting HIV by 60% –...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is now the biggest philanthropic group in the world, the second largest isn't even close. The size of the Gates Foundation worries many who watch philanthropic efforts. The critics worry that it's sheer size can dominate the development agenda worldwide, and could bring pet projects to the fore even though another needs might be more urgent. From the Guardian, writer Andy Beckett spent a few days within the Foundation.For 14 of the last 16 years Bill Gates has been the richest person on earth. More than a decade ago, he decided to start handing over the "large majority" of his wealth – currently £36bn – for the foundation to distribute, so that "the people with the most urgent needs and the fewest champions" in the world, as he and his wife...
At a United Nations conference focusing on maternal health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced a pledge for the cause. The Foundation will spend 1.5 billion dollars to improve maternal health in the countries that have very high rates of death due to pregnancy. Melinda Gates made the pledge during a speech at the "Women Deliver" conference taking place in Washington D.C.. From the Wall Street Journal, writer Mirian Jordan is covering the conference.Melinda Gates said the foundation was taking the lead to jumpstart a global effort. She urged world leaders in the developing and industrialized world to also do their part to prevent mothers and babies from dying. "It is going to take government effort and investment," she said at a women's health conference where she made the...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is the biggest endowment in the world, but not everyone loves the work that they do. The criticisms against the Gates Foundation is as big as the money they give, we have even seen some of those with messages left here on the blog. So to combat this, the new CEO of the Gates Foundation is working improve the image by doing more listening to people. Today's issue of the USA Today published a profile of Gates Foundation CEO Jeffrey Raikes. Writer Julie Schmit lists the long list of complaints against the Foundation and Raikes efforts to improve communication with the critics. "Our success will come from listening and learning from others," Raikes says.Raikes, who worked in Bill Gates' inner circle at Microsoft for 27 years, is often described by...
If you haven't seen the documentary "The Lazarus Effect" please do so. It shows the effect that Anti-Retroviral drugs can have on those who are HIV-positive. The film shows skinny, weak, sickly people, then returns a couple of months later to show the same people stronger, healthier and with a lot more weight. The film is available on YouTube, we linked to it on this prior post. One of the heartbreaking aspects of the film is the stats that show that many who are HIV-positive will never receive the drugs. A couple of studies released today emphasize the impact that ARV drugs have. One shows the benefits, another shows how many will lose those benefits due to funding cut backs.First on the cutbacks, Medecins Sans Frontieres says that funding cutbacks can undermine the progress made and...
Speaking at an international water conference, the CEO of the Gates Foundation called for water efficiency while improving agriculture yields. Jeff Raikes of the Gates Foundation talked about the science breakthroughs in modified seeds that produce more food with less water. Ralkes also showed slides of dried up lakes and rivers in Asia and Africa and how this will cause conflicts in the future.From KOMO news, AP writer Eric Olson recieved a bunch of quotes from the Gates Foundation CEO."I see the linkage of the water crisis and the future of global poverty," he said, "yet I don't see the general awareness of this issue. I don't hear the talk of securing water for food."We worry about terrorism, yet do we understand that the battles over resources are the most devastating?"Raikes echoed...
The head of USAID is trying to bring some ideas from his former employer; the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, into the world of government bureaucracy. Rajiv Shah is trying to put an emphasis on science and technology, and says the era of just giving money to poor countries is over. From an interview with the Seattle Times, Business of Giving writer Kristi Heim tells us Shah's priorities for USAID.In January he arrived at an agency that had lost half of its staff and much of its clout over the past 15 years.Development work had been shifted to private contractors or to the Department of Defense, and many of the best people left USAID, diminishing its "intellectual leadership," he said.As the new USAID administrator, his job is to help turn that around. The Obama Administration has...
From the Voice of America, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates testified on Capital Hill today about global health. There was a different kind of health care debate Wednesday on Capitol Hill. The topic was how the United States can best build on the success of its global efforts to combat AIDS and malaria. Members of Congress received advice from two leaders in global health - a former U.S. president and a technology tycoon.Bill Clinton and Bill Gates sat side-by-side at a witness table before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.Their goal: to convince Congress to spend more to fight disease and provide basic medical services in some of the poorest countries around the world.Former President Clinton called it a "moral imperative," and a foreign policy priority. "This is not complicated," he...
During the recient World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, Bill Gates announced that his foundation would give $10 billion dollars for vaccine research and distribution. This had a couple of reporters from the Wall Street Journal thinking if there were other, more efficient ways to spend that kind of money to solve the world's problems. From the WSJ article, writers Ben Wright and Yasmine Chinwala asked a few business and charity leaders what they would do with 10 billion dollars. Our snippet only contains portions of the first three answers.Percy Barnevik, former chief executive of ABB and chairman of Hand in Hand International.Stimulate job-creation in developing countries."One billion people in the world survive on less than a dollar a day. They are the so-called "bottom billion."...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced yesterday that they will double their commitment vaccines. The Foundation will put $10 billion dollars in the next decade to the development and distribution of vaccines to under-developed countries. The Foundation previously allocated $4.5 billion dollars for vaccines development for such diseases as tuberculosis, diarrhea, and others.From this Associated Press article that we found at NPR, we read more about reaction to the Gates Foundation statement. Gates said the commitment more than doubles the $4.5 billion the foundation has given to vaccine research over the years.The foundation said up to 7.6 million children under 5 could be saved through 2019 as a result of the donation. It also estimates that an additional 1.1 million kids would...
A new partnership between Coca-Cola, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and NGO Technoserve hopes to create a bigger market for small fruit farmers in Eastern Africa. Farmers will be given tools and expertise from Technoserve to increase their yields, while the harvest of fruit will go to Coca-Cola fruit drinks sold in the region. From the Guardian's Katine project, reporter Liz Ford describes the partnership further.It is hoped the $11.5m partnership, announced this week, will enable more than 50,000 small fruit farmers in eastern Uganda and the Mount Kenya and Rift Valley regions of Kenya to increase their productivity and double their incomes by 2014, mainly through the sale of their fruit to use in Coca-Cola's locally produced and sold fruit juices.The partnership will...
Bill and Melinda Gates are beginning to do some lobbying on behalf of the world's poor. They are urging Washington's policymakers to continue funding US aid programs. In a speech made at the capitol today, the Gateses were armed with charts, PowerPoint slides, and videos that show what US aid has accomplished in recent years, and what it could continue to accomplish.From CNET, writer Ina Fried watched the web cast of the presentation."When it comes to global health, Bill and I are optimists--but we're impatient optimists," Melinda Gates said in a statement ahead of a speech on Tuesday. "The world is getting better, but it's not getting better for everyone, and it's not getting better fast enough."Melinda Gates pointed to a program in South Africa where antiviral treatments are helping...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is announcing expanding their efforts to help agriculture in Africa. The Gates Foundation has done a lot of work in supplying seed and fertilizer but they are now moving into education for farmers and political advocacy for agriculture.From this Associated Press story that we found at KSL, writer Donna Gordon Blankinship tells us of what this new round of grant money will be used for. The foundation announced nine grants totaling nearly $120 million a few hours before Bill Gates was scheduled to give his first major speech on agriculture as the keynote speaker at the World Food Prize event in Des Moines, Iowa.In the past three years, the Gates Foundation has committed $1.4 billion to help small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia increase...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has issued a new grant that will help develop savings for the world's poor. The grant is 35 million dollars, and will go to help develop saving systems in the third world. Those who are in poverty in the under-developed world have never had safe places to save their money. While microcredit has done a good job in extending credit to the poorest, savings services has been lagging. From ABC News, this Associated Press story talks to an organization who will receive some of the grant to spur new ideas for extending savings accounts to the world's poor.The Gates Foundation is providing an infusion of cash to facilitate the sharing of ideas among the innovators and to make sure the new systems offer a wide range of financial services.Alfred Hannig,...
We know all about the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, but his company Microsoft also does some things to help poverty fight. Microsoft organizes the "Imagine Cup" that invites teens to submit technological advancements that can help the environment or those in poverty. From Monday Morning, we learn more about the competition and one example of one of the entries. “They really are taking on all these problems”, Joe Wilson, Microsoft senior director of academic initiatives, told media prior to the finals.“This audience wants social change in a way generations before didn’t, and innovations in technology are coming from these people who live with it, not from the guys in the corporations”.More than 300,000 students from some 110 countries competed in the greatest turnout seen at...
A grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will help to start new agriculture support funding. The World Bank will operate the fund that aims to grow financial services for rural areas in the under-developed world. From India E News, Arun Kumar gives us more details on the new fund.In a time of tight credit, the Facility will support grants to bank and non-bank institutions for activities to increase access to financial services, such as savings, credit, payments and insurance, in rural areas in developing countries as profitable business lines, the bank announced Monday.'In India, a country with relatively high rural banking outreach, 45 percent of smallholder farmers did not have a savings account, and 69 percent did not have a credit account with formal financial institutions,'...
Officials from the World Health Organization are warning that tuberculosis cases could become drug resistant and "spiral out of control" They say that drugs will be of little help for the most recent version of medicines used to fight TB is 50 years old.From this McClatchy Newspapers article that we found in the News and Observer, reporter Tim Johnson reports on the warnings issued at a health forum taking place in Beijing. "The situation is already alarming, and poised to grow much worse very quickly," said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization.With Bill Gates at her side, Chan urged health officials from 27 countries at a three-day forum on drug-resistant TB to recognize the warning signs of what looms ahead, saying that traditional drugs are useless...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is investing money in cocoa and cashew farming and have others pitching in as well. The donations will help African farmers growing those crops to work themselves out of poverty.$42 million dollars will be donated from food companies such as Hershey, Mars Starbucks and others. The Gates Foundation will also donate $48 million dollars. Oregon's Statesman Journal has more information on the particulars of the donations, and what parts of Africa will receive them. Writer Donna Gordon Blankenship filed the story.Among the companies giving cash and in-kind contributions to help with the cocoa and cashew project are The Hershey Co., Kraft Foods, Mars, Inc., Archer Daniels Midland Co., Cargill, Armajaro, Olam International Ltd., and Starbucks Coffee Co.Cocoa...
Rotary International has been raising money for years to battle polio. Today Rotary received a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to help their cause. The grant is $255 million dollars, one of the largest the foundation has ever made. The World Health Organization wanted to totally stop Polio in the year 2000. In over 30 years they have spent 6 billion dollars trying to eradicate the disease in the under developed world.From the Los Angeles Times, Mary Engel details the fight to stop what's left of the Polio. The number of countries in which the virus is still endemic has dropped since 1988 from more than 125 to four -- Nigeria, India, Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, Afghanistan. These four countries accounted for 1,488 of the 1,625 polio cases reported in 2008.Fifteen...
The World Food Programme plans to expand its food crop buying program this year. The new program called "Purchase for Progress" will buy directly from small farmers. The experimental aid program recently received a big grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to get it started. From the Ugandan Newspaper The Daily Monitor, Dorothy Nakaweesi explains the effect that "Purchase for Progress" could have on the country. Traditionally WFP has been buying only maize and beans from Uganda. Last year, the programme purchased maize and beans worth close to $34 million (Shs64.4 billion). However, in the next three years, it’s planning to double its spending by buying more than $100 million (Shs190 billion) worth of food annually. “WFP will buy other staple foods such as millet, sorghum,...
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given $27 million dollars to the McKnight Foundation. The Foundation works on food research to help farmers in the poorest parts of the world. The Foundation has many projects ongoing through the world. McKnight works to help farmers improve their seed varieties, improve their soil, and control pests. The Star Tribune's Matt McKinney offers more on the grant and the Foundations work. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the biggest name in philanthropy, has awarded $27 million to the McKnight Foundation to study food crops and farming in some of the poorest corners of the world. The grant, for research on crops such as sorghum and finger millet and on ways to increase the yield of sweet potato in Uganda, is a first for the Minnesota-based...
The economic conditions will slow the growth of the Gates Foundation. The charitable foundation started by Microsoft founder Bill Gates funds many poverty fighting initiatives around the world.As we learn from the Associated Press article that we found at the Malaysian Star, the foundation has had to adjust the amount it will pay out in the next year due to the slow economy. The foundation said payouts will grow by about 10 percent in 2009, a smaller growth than previously planned."The financial crisis is affecting everyone, from our foundation to our partners,'' Chief Executive Officer Jeff Raikes wrote in a letter dated last week that was posted on the foundation's Web site.Started by the Microsoft Corp. co-founder and his wife in 1994, the foundation has the international goals of...
from the Washington Post By Philip RuckerUNITED NATIONS, - The world's largest philanthropy on Wednesday announced an initiative to transform the way the U.N. World Food Program purchases food by helping poor, small-scale farmers in undernourished countries of Africa and Latin America sell their surplus crops at competitive prices.The Purchase for Progress program is designed to help combat hunger and poverty in the developing world by giving farmers, many of them women with little or no access to commercial markets, opportunities to reach reliable buyers, including the World Food Program. In a five-year pilot period, the $76 million program hopes to increase the incomes of 350,000 such farmers in 21 countries, including 15 in sub-Saharan Africa.The program, to be administered by the...
from Red Orbit
One of the world's most successful software experts is trading computers for philanthropy. Bill Gates announced he is stepping down on Friday from his daily duties at Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), to focus on his $38 billion charitable foundation.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation -- built by his vast fortune-has been around for ten years. Gates is the world's third richest man, and he says with great wealth brings great responsibility.
The 52-year-old will trade a lifetime of developing software for a new role in finding new vaccines or to micro-finance projects in the developing world.
The CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Patty Stonesifer said, Gates won't focus on managing the organization; instead he will hire hundreds of new employees.
"He's clear that he...
from the Independent For Western travellers to malarial parts of the world such as sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and south America, the parasite holds few terrors. Dose yourself with the right prophylactic drug – Malarone is the current gold standard for areas where there is drug resistance – douse yourself with insect repellent and you are unlikely to fall victim to the lethal disease.The indigenous population has fewer choices. Prophylactic drugs, at about £2 a day for Malarone, are beyond their reach. Bed nets, impregnated with insecticide, offer effective protection at minimal cost and millions have been distributed by charities. But most people in the affected countries accept malaria as an illness to be endured, suffering regular attacks.The usual response to a fever was to reach...
from The Seattle Times By Kristi HeimSeattle Times business reporterCan Seattle's voracious demand for $3 lattes help send a poor child to school in Rwanda?Farmers in Rwanda are starting to sell to premium coffee buyers such as Starbucks and Peet's for the first time, thanks to a program to help them boost the quality of beans.The effort to help African coffee growers is part of a pledge of $900 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help improve agriculture in the poorest countries, largely by tapping into the power of the marketplace.It's also an example of the kind of "creative capitalism" that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates hailed Thursday at the annual powwow of big ideas known as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.The world needs new solutions to solve the...
from The Seattle TimesBy Kristi HeimThe Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is dramatically expanding its efforts to help the world's poorest farmers, with goals every bit as ambitious as its better-known global-health work fighting diseases such as AIDS and malaria.But the foundation's nascent agricultural program is encountering more resistance than much of its other work, with critics concerned that its market-oriented, technology-centric approach will open the door to big agribusiness interests and genetically engineered food.The Gates Foundation began making grants a year and a half ago, spending $350 million so far. Its aim is to radically boost farm productivity in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia in a short time by introducing new seed varieties, irrigation, fertilizer, training for...
from The East AfricanTHE REGIONAL MALARIA RESEARCH Institute — African Malaria Network Trust (Amanet) — has received $4.1 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to do more research on the tropical killer disease. The funding will also be used for building institutional capacity in health research ethics (HRE) across sub-Saharan Africa.Dr Charles Wanga, communications officer of Amanet, told The EastAfrican last week that the four-year grant would promote and foster discussion, research and publications that highlight African malaria perspectives.Dr Wanga said the project would focus on the strengthening HRE review processes across sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in institutions undertaking malaria intervention trials. The funding will help ensure the research undertaken...